Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman

Subject: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From:
Date: 03 Jun 98 - 12:54 AM

GINO FOREMAN was a real force (along with Rick von Schmitt and Rolf Kahn)in the Cambridge, Massfolk movement in the early 60's He used to occassionally climb up onstage at the Club 47 Mt Auburn and sing with Joan Baez. As vividly as if they had just finished the performance I can hear them singing.."When you hear them Cuckoos hollerin'..it's a sign of rain, buddy it's a sign of rain." I recently found a tape recording that I made and forgot about of Gino singing and playing banjo and blues guitar in my room (Quincy 328) at Harvard in about 1960. I understand that Gino died tragically of a drug overdose Not long after that. My questions are: 1) Does anyone know of other recordings by Gino? 2) Does Gino have living family to whom I could send these tapes?

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: Jaxon
Date: 05 Jun 98 - 08:43 AM

I think your best bet might be to contact Eric Von Schmidt up in Henniker, N.H.. He and Jim rooney researched and wrote "Baby Let Me Follow You Down", a history of folk in Boston and Cambridge. He would probably have the best idea where to start. Good luck.
Jack Murray

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 09:09 PM

Gino (Geno) Foreman and I were married in 1965. We have a daughter, Haydee. And a grandson, Quinn, (Geno's middle name).

I'll share any other information you would like. A tape was mentioned and of course I'm always looking for tapes.

I don't know who sent the message.

Kind regards,

Marcia Stehr Foreman [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 09:45 PM

Sometimes the Mudcat is amazing.

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 09:50 PM

I agree Mac.........Took about 4 years, but what an amazing thing.

Santa Fe/Marcia......I have no idea who posted the above info or how to get in touch with them. The membership thing was a bit different back then so there were often posts with no names attached.

Please stick around and enjoy the 'cat.....Perhaps someone will know who that was.......

Spaw

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 21 Apr 02 - 10:43 AM

Thanks!

It is amazing!

Keep it going!

Marcia in Santa Fe

Subject: RE: Blues for GINO FOREMAN?
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 26 Apr 02 - 11:03 AM

Blues for Gino from Davey Graham's The Complete Guitarist is a beautiful remembrance of Geno Foreman.

Perhaps some of you have heard it?

For many years, our daughter, Haydee Mitchell, has hosted a wonderful radio show on WERU in Maine called Planet Dance.

Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 03:11 PM

Gino was a very close friend of mine in New York, starting in the very early 60s. We met at Art D'Lugoff's Village Gate which was perhaps the earliest venue in New York/
Greenwich Village for jazz, and the upcomiing musicial renaissance of the 60s. I knew him and his parents well and lived with them at their home on Riverside Drive. His death was a tremendous shock to me, when his folks  Clark and Mairi wrote me; apparently he died of a drug [heroin?] overdose in London. I was living in Hawai'i at the time and had lost touch with Gino after he moved to Europe and learned about hi death in 1966. If remember, Gino had 'discovered' Hamza e-Din in Italy? Not sure of the details. Gino was also Bob Dylan's 'body guard' for a period of time, in the early 60's, and close with
Joannie Baez, as well, which is how he came to side with her on "Cuckoos.' Gino was also good friends with 'Chip' Monck, who was the Stones' lighting genius for some time; and with Bruce Langhorne.
One of Gino's sister lived in Germany for many years; and another sister, Shelagh, in Cambridge, MA I don't know if they are still alive. His dad, Clark died in 1977; and his mother, Mairi, a few years ago, in the late 90s, at about age 98. Both had moved to Ajuntas, Puerto Rico, where I visted them.

Bob Freedman

I'd like to see somneone writer a biography of Gino. He was a remarkable musician and an extraordinary person - who died before he got a chance to potentialize his musicianship

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: GUEST, Serge Tcherepnine
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 12:08 PM

I spent quite a few white nights roaming the streets in Paris with Geno who sometimes stayed with me in my garret off the rue Furstemberg, hungry as hell at 5 am, off to grab pastry off the shelves of the one boulangerie open all night near the Place de l'Odeon. I got to meet Geno thanks to Mimi Baez who was living in Paris with her parents and a number of friends from the Club 47 folk scene in Cambridge, Paul Richard and Clay Jackson. The Baez loved Geno (Joan devotes a very warm and touching chapter to Geno in her biography, by the way). But they thought him a bit too wild for 15 year old Mimi. So I never saw them together. I led a double life, visiting the Baez, taking Mimi with Mom as chaperone to concerts; once all together with Joan to see Marpessa Dawn in a new film "Orfeo Negro". But with Geno off hours, doing a lot of hasch and pot (at the time we could walk in front of a french policeman smoking an algerian joint big as a cigar without a worry!)

I had an intense social life with Geno and his many friends, centered around the "Chameleon" bar, and those staying at Mme Rachou's hotel rue Git le Coeur, later called the "beat hotel". It turns out Wm. Burroughs and Bryon Gysin were cutting up texts on the floor of their rooms at the hotel, which led to Burrough's novel, The Naked Lunch. We listened to a great dela of the Blues and jazz and indian music. Geno did a lot of dealing. One day he shows me a switchblade knife he had just bought, leaning towards me with a knowing look on his face, with his bad teeth showing through his scraggly beard, saying "I got to prepare for my trip to Tangiers!" There was bravado but also real fear in his voice. Needless to say, this spun me around. I realized he was playing in a league he probably inherited from street days in New York, and it worried me.. But he returned, jovial, happy, confident, enthusiastic, with ample stocks of green moroccan hash.

Then we parted ways. I returned to my junior year at Harvard. He disappeared from my view except for occasional news about his whereabouts from friends. I wished I had known of his friendship with Chip Monk (since later in '68-'69 I did work in multimedia, Pablo Lights, the Electric Circus and I would have joyfully celebrated our mutual friend). I'm terrifically glad to come across this web site. Geno is a friend whose memory naturally draws me to want to celebrate his passage on earth. His enthusiasm entered my blood never to leave since, now for 45 years ! Let's party !


Serge Tcherepnine

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 09:12 PM

Is anyone here in touch with Marcia Stehr, who was married to GF for a time? I have PMed her, but the post was not current and might not have gotten to her, or she may not be aware to keep checking for something to come through from so old a thread. I may have met GF in the mid 1950s in NYC. His dad was an acquaintance/friend of my dad's, Mr. Foreman and his son came to parties at my dad's apartment on more that one occasion. Hoping to add my knowledge to others, if she wants it.                Tw

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: GUEST,Marcia Stehr
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 11:27 AM

Hello Tammy! This is great! Thank you for your message. I have not checked this site for a couple of years and am so pleased to find some wonderful messages. Please contact me at: [e-mail]
I look forward to hearing from you.

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: Marci Stehr (deleted)
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 12:11 PM

Hi Serge! Thank you for the sweet memories! I never met you but heard about you from Geno. I love Geno stories. A couple of years ago, Hamza el Din came to Santa Fe for a concert and we met again after about 20 years. We had a wonderful time remembering Geno and listening to some tapes I have of Hamza and Geno singing and playing together.
Yes, Bob, Geno did "discover" Hamza in Rome. It was an awesome meeting and a story I will tell at another time.
Hamza and I keep in touch now and an amazing thing happened last year. I got an e-mail from Hamza which he had received through his web site. It was from an old friend (Luke Russell) who had been looking for me. We had known him in Italy in 1965-66. One night as he and his wife were leaving Rome for Greece on their motorcycle Geno ran into them. It was winter and Geno saw that Luke did not have a very warm coat for that time of year.

Here is how Luke wrote it to me:"Gino put his hand on my shoulder, said "Man,-he always called me 'Man'-Man this [meaning the coat] isn't going to work for you." And he took off his thick black leather coat, said "Here, man, take this. You need it." When I protested he went on, "You can give it back to me when we meet in London." So I gratefully accepted it, giving him my Woolrich coat in exchange. I wore his heavy leather coat clear to Brindisi and then to Greece and then north to England.
When I heard he'd died I was too shocked to think straight. Otherwise I would have offered you then what I hope you will accept now since I still have it and have been keeping it for you or Haydee ever since. So I'll send it along too if that's ok. Please verify the address. It is a bit weather and travel worn but that's the way Gino would have wanted to see it I think."

The coat arrived the day before Thanksgiving last year (2004). Inside was a note from Luke:"Dear Marci, Pleae accpet this jacket. I know you are aware what it is , whose it was. How I happen to have it after all these years, you ask? Well it represents one of the grandest gifts and strongest affirmations I ever received. Love, Luke

Happy Holidays to all, Love, Marci/Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: Marci Stehr (deleted)
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 02:11 PM

PLEASE HELP ME SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT!!

An important clarification regarding Geno Foreman's death. The cause of death as stated in the Coroner's Report: Septicemia, caused by perforation of the colon resulting from an obstruction.

IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH DRUGS.

The doctor who examined Geno in the West London Hospital and sent him home with me cryed at the inquest. He was young and had made a terrible mistake.

Bob Freeman: You were a dear friend to Geno. You were as important to him as he was to you. I hope you read this message!

Subject: RE: Did you know GINO FOREMAN?
From: GUEST,No, but I'm his daughter
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 12:02 PM

Thanks to you all. I too love Geno stories!
Haydee

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 12:05 AM

I'm just some schmuck in New Mexico who always loved "Baby Let me Follow You Down." Reading this page has filled my eyes with tears.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: GUEST,Mary Ann Koontz
Date: 10 Feb 08 - 01:00 PM

I met Gino only once but saw him several times. The first times were in Cambridge, where I was at Harvard, 1956 to 1960. Gino would come into Hayes-Bickford's (the Bick; open all night, I think) with his friends, and someone told me who he was. You had to look up when he came in.

The next time was in Paris in 1961. My friend had Massachusetts musician friends who told her to look up Gino in Paris. We paid our visit--I remember a dark room with three or four people. Gino gave something to my friend, and it was lucky that I didn't have it too, because I had to lead her by the hand, giggling, back to our hotel at 35 rue des Ecoles, where we lived in maid's quarters on the top floor.

Later in 1963, back in New York, I lived at 250 Riverside Drive at 97th Street, the building where the Foremans lived. My roommate and I became friends with Hamza (and his friend Sandy Bull). We saw Hamza quite a lot, but then lost touch. I reconnected briefly in NY in the early 80s. My former roommate and I were very sad to hear that he died. We don't know much about his later years.

Earlier, Hamza told me that Gino died when a box of books fell on him while he was walking on the sidewalk, I think he said in Paris. But, evidently, that's not true.
Best wishes,
Mary Ann

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: flame schon
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 02:54 PM

If this post appears in triplicate , sorry. I've tried to post twice before with no success.
Yes. Geno's singing Cocaine, and Cuckoos Calling and possibly something else is in the film DOPE which I (my name was then Diane Rochlin) and Sheldon Rochlin made in London in 66-67, finished editing in NJ by '68. Geno was already dead by then and the story of his death told by an unseen narrator named Damion in explicit detail and at great length,and I believe with accuracy, forms the centerpiece as it were, of this film. There are still photos of him there throughout the telling of the story of his death. And his presence in the film, although only as a ghost as it were, is palpable. He was a psychic and musical mentor to Casey Diess (I'm not spelling his last name right) who is in Dope, and who, following Geno, got into heroin, and after the filming was over went to live in Italy with his girlfriend, stepped outside his door with an axe in his hand, was struck by lightning and then died. (Casey, that is).
Anyway, yes, although Geno was already dead when we made the film I had met him a few times before...I was in Cambridge MA 58-60 and remember Club 47, may have met him at a party perhaps, definitely met him in Rome in a cafe bar in Trastevere one evening and met him a couple of times maybe '65 in Positano when we (Sheldon and I) were there filming the movie Vali.
Anyway, Dope is now on DVD and will be available for download through its own website shortly. (maybe a few weeks). It features Geno singing at least 2 songs. It is as "underground" as it gets. Email me for details.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: flame schon
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 03:03 PM

and I forgot to mention, there will be a screening of "DOPE" at The Film Center in Santa Fe NM on St Michael's Drive, on Friday April 11 at 8:15 PM.
The last screening of this film that I know of was at The First Provincetown Film Festival in '99 where I presented/introduced it.

So for those of you here in Santa Fe, this is an opportunity to see the movie which features Geno's music as well as the "story" of his death told by Damion.

Flame

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: open mike
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:30 PM

Marcia/ Marci Stehr was in Santa Fe
and the latest post mentions santa fe,
and an earlier post is from new Mexico...
is this a co-indcidence?
oh, and the radio station http://www.weru.org/
page has a great image of Utah Phillips

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: flame schon
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 01:18 AM

open mike...you know, New Mexico is "The Land of Enchantment"...so what is co-incidence?
(if not "co-incidence" then what? "conspiracy?")
Flame

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: flame schon
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 03:09 PM

Yes. Geno's singing and playing several songs (at least 3) can be heard and photos of him as well can all be experienced by downloading the movie DOPE at www.dopethemovie.net
The website is up and I think the download feature will be there any day now.
My name now is Flame Schon, but it was Diane Rochlin at the time of this movie, shot in London in early '67. Geno had already died by then. Marci Stehr Foreman his widow gave us the music which is used throughout the film and photos of Geno as well which accompany an unseen narrator named Damion who tells the "story" of Geno's death. Featured in the film is Casey Diess who had been close to Geno, and who, after the filming was completed, went to Italy where he was struck by lightning and died. Casey has been immortalized apparently by a song from longago called "The Ballad of Casey Deiss' by Shawn Phillips. I believe that Shawn Phillips who calls Casey "brother" in that song, would really like to see the film about which I imagine he's never heard. So, if anyone knows how to contact Shawn please let me know or else direct him to the website for the film. www.dopethemovie.net
Thank you
Flame Schon
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: bobad
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 03:18 PM

There are contact links at his website: http://www.shawnphillips.com/

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: flame schon
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 03:52 PM

Thank you bobad.
I went to Shawn Phillips website and contacted him through his manager who also notified Shawn Phillips fans of the existence on the web of the movie Dope featuring Casey Deiss.
I believe that the website is now fully operational and there is a trailer there (with a bit of Geno singing) and the possibility of buying a full length version of the movie as streaming video and also the possibility of buying a DVD. I think that there are actually 3 songs by Geno, the two mentioned earlier and one which begins " Some say I take the needle, some say I snort cocaine, "..etc
Anyway, the website is http//:www.dopethemovie.net

Flame Schon
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: flame schon
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 11:08 AM

dopethemovie.net is entirely a different movie from dopethemovie.org which appears to be a skateboard movie. Our (Sheldon Rochlin and myself -Flame Schon-formerly Diane Rochlin) movie DOPE is from 1967-68. I only discovered another movie DOPE with a similar URL a couple of days ago.
This may create confusion and I'm not sure what to do about this.
By the way, the trailer is now shorter and features Geno singing...and Casey Deiss as well.
Flame Schon (Diane Rochlin)
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: GUEST,Haydée Foreman (Geno's Daughter)
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 07:05 AM

Thank you, Flame, for making this movie. I saw it years ago with my mother but will really enjoy seeing and hearing my father sing again. I remember that it was disturbing, though, to hear the graphic details of his death. I know them but to hear them is different. At the time of his death, I was in an adjoining room of a small appartment in London but only 18 months old. Seeing footage of heroin use is still very chilling to me.

Thanks again, Haydée

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: flame schon
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 01:28 AM

Haydee, you're welcome and delighted to hear from you. The past is often difficult. It can never be changed but it can be regarded differently. Time is a solvent. To that end, I will quote from 2 reviews of Dope from long ago:
"Their (the Rochlins ) refusal to interpret their subjects has made the film an unusually valuable testament to the spirit of its time and place.....Ultimately, the best analogy for the Rochlin's achievement is the old blues song which runs through it like a refrain: "Hey, baby, won't you come here quick/ This old cocaine's making me sick/ Cocaine all around my brain"
Dope shares the same tone of subdued pain and troubled acquiescence; and it is perhaps this, above all, which makes the film so distinctive"--Tony Rayns, London, Monthly Film Bulletin-June 1971
and this---
"When it premiered at the Locarno Festival in 1968, DOPE was praised by Variety's Gene Moskowitz as ' not just another look at the so-called drug, or hippie scene. A rugged documentary with revealing insights into the sad, touching, downbeat, sometimes tender drug scene'.
'One's perception of DOPE is even more complex today, when the immediacy and poignancy of its style mingle with other perspectives provided by the distance of seven years' according to John Hanhardt, Head of the Film Department. ' Seeing DOPE remains a harrowing experience while at the same time one feels a curious nostalgia, both for times past and for lives lost' . The edges between immediate experience and remote history begin to blur, we see at once 'how it is' and 'how it was'. Years from now DOPE will probably survive as an historical document of a time long ago. If so, it will surely inform and shape how anyone who has seen it thinks about the time and place it describes."
--Whitney Museum of American Art, press release for New American Filmmakers Series 1975

So, Haydee, Geno, your father has passed into myth and legend and like all heroes he has a fatal flaw perhaps...but the story of his death and even more so, his strong true wonderful music anchors the film and the film DOPE is, although really idiosyncratic, a true enough document of that time and that place.

The scenes of shooting up do carry a certain frisson for most people perhaps but they punctuate the film and carry a certain metaphorical meaning as well. It's hard for me to imagine the film without them. And dealing with a 40 year old past for me has had its perils as well. The past needs to be examined but also put gently away.

If you saw it long ago, you may want to see it on DVD which I could send to you..if you give me your address. For all other readers, Dope is available both as streaming video and DVD on the site www.dopethemovie.net and there is a trailer there as well.

Take care. Flame ([e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 29 May 08 - 12:38 PM

Today Geno would have been 67 years old.

He was born Hugh Quin Foreman on May 29, 1941 in Washington D.C. and died on Nov. 15, 1966 in London, England. His parents were Mairi and Clark Foreman.

Thank you, Flame for bringing the movie DOPE back into the present. It is a beautiful "ART" film. The photography is gorgeous and the editing creative, tight and in sync with the awesome sound track.
Even with its beauty it is very difficult for me to watch and more so on the big screen where the impact is intense. It takes me right back to that time, those four days that Geno was dying at home.

I hope that some of you will listen to the trailer at www.dopethemovie.net and see if you recognize the song he is singing and playing which Flame refers to as "Some Call Me a Junkie". On the original tape I wrote "Drug Song". So my question is: is it traditional or original? I can't imagine anyone but Geno singing it.

Thanks so much for all of your interest.
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: GUEST,harriet jerusha korim
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 12:17 AM

dear Marcia,

In late summer '63 (?) I was 17, on the way back from HUAC hearings on Cuba with Peter Lenz, we stopped at Geno's parents' apartment (some of us continued to Boston). I can't remember now if Geno was in the incredibly crowded VW bug with us, but I remember him at RIverside Drive, playing Monk's Misterioso on phonograph. Maybe it was the first time I heard Monk, and definitely the first time I had ever gazed on that night-time view of the city; still have a strong memory of the room, the music and listening to Geno tell stories about freezing, snowy rooftops downtown... the power of his story-telling, and his energy.

coincidentally, i was close friend of Liza Stelle who worked with Mystic Fire Video and through her, knew Sheldon Rochlin and Maxine Harris.

wonder if Peter Lenz (who used to run the Golden Vanity?) has any old tapes of Geno, or memories...

how did you meet?

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 12:25 PM

Dear Harriet,

Thank you for your message!

I am currently going through all of the old correspondence, writings, photos, drawings and other materials from those days. There is an AP photo of Geno being carried out of the HUAC hearing by the DC police. It is dated Sept. 3, 1964. Geno had gone to the rescue of Morton Slater who was being attacked by a member of George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party. As I recall we rode on a large bus with other members of the group there and back. I remember that gathering at the Foreman's when we returned. You were there! (I also have an article with photo published in the "Globe and Mail", a Toronto newspaper, about the trip and attack.)

I remember Peter Lenz on the trip. Are you still in touch with him? I have a lot of photos from the trip.

Recently, I have read two books written by people who were on that trip in 1964: "A Freewheelin' Time", Suze Rotolo and "In the House of My Fears", Joel Agee. They both write about the trip to Cuba and Geno as well.
Amazon.com lists 10 books with references to Geno Foreman and two with references to Gino Foreman.

How well I remember the first time I saw Geno. I was working at Gerde's Folk City putting myself through Cooper Union's Fine Arts program. It was the fall of 1963. He had just returned from Europe and was sitting with Bob and Betsy Siggins from Cambridge. My heart almost stopped because I somehow I KNEW him. I knew right then that he would be a big part of my life. We became close on the trip to Cuba the next summer. When we returned we started trying to get pregnant and were so happy in Jan. to discover that we were successful. What timing! Our baby was due on July 26! Haydee Santamaria Foreman was born on July 27, 1965 in Rome.

Geno and I were married on March 1, 1965 and left suddenly for Europe on April 1. My mother saved all of my letters to her during the time we were in Europe. How wonderful to have that almost daily record of our adventures.

Geno's writings are so powerful. I have realized that I may be the only one who will make sure they are not forgotten.

Your connection to Mystic Fire is so interesting. You know that Diane (now Flame) lives here in Santa Fe. Have you looked at the film DOPE made by the Rochlins? There are two trailers with Geno singing on YouTube.

I hope that these old tapes I have are still good.

Peace,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: flame schon
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 06:09 PM

Hello Harriett
I see that you are (were) in Provincetown. Then perhaps you even know Caroline Thomson, the artist who lives there, who is the principal player in the movie DOPE-shot in London in '67- made by me (under my previous name Diane Rochlin) and Sheldon Rochlin. If you go to its website you can either watch streaming video or purchase a DVD of DOPE which features Geno singing...(since you were wondering about old tapes of Geno and memories -yes there are "memories" and photos in the movie as well). The site is www.dopethemovie.net

Best wishes
Flame Schon

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:36 PM

I found the words to the song that Geno sings on the trailers for the movie DOPE. It is called "Junky Blues". The words were written in Rome around 1962.

Here is a Set List Geno wrote at that time. The spelling is Geno's.The remarks at the end are his.

Rukus- C
12 Gates- G
On This Mountain- E
Shack Dance- Ain't that Lovin- Boss Man
Rosie- E Grizz- A
Blues- GA. Ala.- E
Houston Blues- G
Only Baby (No one will)- E
Fast St. Louis- C
Track Line- GE
O Mayreh- E
Rise Up Shepard- E6
Junky Blues- A

"Why do Mothuhfokuhs come up and ast me do I play home onna range and Clementine in Italy? Or anywhere for that matter?"

Peace,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 01:15 PM

It was 10 years ago that an unknown person started this thread.

I need to correct one song title on the set list above. It is EAST St. Louis Blues.

I am working on a book about Geno. I have so much material that it will take up a whole book. There are over 200 photos. If any of you old friends of his would like to contribute stories or any other materials you might have, all are welcome.

More soon,
Peace,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 12:43 PM

"Baby Let Me Follow You Down", The illustrated story of the Cambridge folk years by Eric von Schmidt and Jim Rooney, University of Massachusetts Press. 2d ed.,1994. 320 pages.

Out of print for all these years, it is available at Amazon.com and other internet sites.

This was a labor of love. The first edition was published in 1979. Memories were fresh and the stories are full of excitement and energy. It is a vibrant picture of the people, places and time. It follows some of the group to New York and Europe. Most of the people in the book knew Geno.

There are four photos of Geno.

One is of Geno, Marci and baby Haydee taken the summer of 1966 at Villa Adriana, Italy. The caption underneath lists the date of Geno's death as 1965. It was 1966.

A full page photo by Charlie Frizzell is a close-up of Geno playing on stage. I believe he is with Rev. Gary Davis. He was very young because he does not have the beard.

Another full-page photo is by John Cooke. I believe he told me it was taken backstage at a Dylan concert.

The fourth is by Stephen Fenerjian. It is a recording session with von Schmidt and others. Geno's shoulder can be seen.

I've counted a total of 21 pages which have a reference to Geno.

There are many wonderful stories about him by:

Clay Jackson
Bob Neuwirth
Betsy Siggins
John Nagy
Peter Rowan
Eric von Schmidt

There is a delightful account by Bob Neuwirth about Geno's audition to the State Conservatory of Music in Berlin. Bob was there with him.
Geno broke all of the rules and still became an honored entrant. He never enrolled.

Clay Jackson recalled that in Paris in 1962:

"He'd gotten very saint-like and very quiet, and he moved as little as possible. He smoked a lot of grass and occasionally he'd been known to snort a little heroin but he refused to take the needle. Sometimes I'd wake up about 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning and I'd realize I'd already been listening to music for an hour. He'd be sitting there playing Thelonius Monk on the guitar, playing something like "Blue Monk", note by note perfect; very quiet but perfect. He'd always been very undisciplined on guitar, but toward the end he was playing the finest jazz, country, old time blues-just the finest stuff you ever heard. He never had much of a voice, but he finally got what little voice he had to where it started getting really funky and good-gravelly and rough and just great."

Peace,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: GUEST,BOB FOREMAN [III]
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 12:31 AM

I am Geno's first cousin once removed. [e-mail].

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: GUEST,BOB FOREMAN
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 01:31 AM

It's spelled "G-E-N-O."

There seem to be some crucial missing pieces. According to Mairi, "The Mighty Quinn" was written (but not recorded by) Dylan: rather by Manfred Mann. She said it was about Geno. My assumption, from the lyric, was that Geno was Dylan's dealer, not "bodyguard."

Geno's FBI file is heavily "redacted" as THEY say, and it made me wonder if ole J Edgar Hoover wasn't directly involved [in not getting Geno medical help]. Hoover, who strangely is a relation on my maternal side, hated Clark, my great uncle on the paternal side. Clark's voluminous FBI file shows that Hoover could never "get anything" on Clark, for Clark was literally "clean as a whistle."

So it seemed to me that Hoover, knowing that Geno was his Dad's Achilles heel, went in for the kill. Incredibly, at least according to Shelagh, Geno's sister, he was never arrested! THE GOOD OLE DAYS.

Edith Tiger, Clarks assistant (now deceased) told me in NYC that Geno's death "took the wind" out for Clark. Coupled with 2 heart attacks, he resigned from the ECLC and self-exiled to PR.

Geno had a friend who worked for ECLC, Philip Luce, I am unsure who came first, that is, did Clark introduce Luce to Geno or v/v, (and the FBI won't tell me) but Tiger was convinced Luce was an agent or "narc" as Clark would say. SOMEONE was filling in the FBI regarding Geno's psychiatric reports ["prognosis: negative"], and I guess it was his "good friend" Luce. Luce is dead, but seems to have been tied in to Lee Harvey Oswald.

YEAH IT'S very complicated.

Tiger told me that Geno, raised without conventional supervision, for Clark had taught for A.S. Neill in Germany, later of SUMMERHILL in England, that as a child desired his named to be changed, for, he thought, "HUGH" sounded too much like "HEY, YOU." So he invented "Geno." Geno was later tossed out of SUMMERHILL, as from every other school he ever was forced to attend. He never graduated hi skool.

In one of the above mentioned books, the wonderful quote is, "that at the age of 16, Geno single-handedly introduced marijuana to Cambridge, Mass."

What is also omitted in all of the above is the antipathy between Geno and his Dad, Clark. They seemed to be irreconcilable. Clark gave an annual THOMAS PAINE award each December for he who best represented CIVIL LIBERTIES, and in 1963, Clark, after much debate internal, decided to give the award to Dylan. Tiger felt this was, on the one hand, a way to broaden the support base of the ECLC (mainly middle aged Jews), and on the other to extend an olive branch to his son. Dylan, drunk and stoned, muddled his way thru his acceptance speech, and then said he "kind of understood where Lee Oswald was coming from" or the like--THIS THREE WEEKS AFTER THE ASSASINATION! THE ROOM WAS STUNNED!!!!

Dylan IS THE VILLAIN (hey it rhymes) in this piece, for he apparently had his ACTUAL bodyguards rebuke Geno, a junkie, perhaps saying GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE when their paths crossed on Dylan's first Europe tour. Similarly, Dylan, via Albert Grossman, rebuked Clark, for he wrote an apology to Clark the day after that disastrous non-fund-raiser and agreed to do a make-good benefit concert on ECLC's behalf.

The date was set, it was to be at BAM, but at the last minute he reneged. Hey, he had MONEY NOW-- SO WHO NEEDS THE FOREMANS?

A lot of the above is assumption based on my research, and I'd enjoy clarification on any and all points.

Bob.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 09:59 AM

Welcome Bob Foreman!

Thank you for your interest in Geno.

I am putting together a book about Geno and I am planning to address the issues you bring up in your post.

Clark wrote at length about Geno as a child and they wrote a "book" together the summer of 1959 called "Oedipus and the Bomb" (originally titled "Beatnik Summer").

Geno wrote about his relationship with both of his parents starting when he was very young. This will come out in the book.

Philip Abbott Luce was setting up Geno for a FBI sting which is why we had to leave the US suddenly. It is an interesting story- how we got the word about the bust and what took place afterward.

The Foremans gave me all of Geno's personal belongings. I have letters and keepsakes from the very beginning. The letters are very revealing.
Then there are all of Geno's writings. Very revealing-and beautiful.

Peace,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Disography- Geno Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 25 Nov 08 - 10:23 AM

Geno Foreman   Discography
(May 29, 1941- Nov. 15, 1966)

American Folk Songs
78 rpm. Recorded Nov. 22, 1957
Dobell�s Jazz Record Shop, 77, Charing Cross Road
London, W.C. 2, England
First Published 1958
Recording and Supervision: John R. T. Davies

Vocals: Shirley Bland
Guitar: Jim McGregor
Banjo: Geno Foreman

Side One:
Go Tell Aunt Rhodie

Geno�s Breakdown (Foreman)

Cripple Creek

Side Two:
Foggy Mountain Top (Carter)

Sister Phoebe

-------------------------------------

Fire at Club 47
Peter Stanley and the Cambridge Folk Music Years
Talkeetna Records 1999
Recorded at the Club 47, Cambridge, MA in 1960.

Track 11
All the Good Times Are Past and Gone
Geno Foreman, Bob Siggins and Joan Baez

Liner notes:
�Everyone remembers their first meeting with Geno Foreman, who �entered a room with the delicacy of a bazooka shell� according to Eric von Schmidt, who later called him �a one-man army at war with the establishment, with authority, with squares and with his own tendencies to self-destruct.�

The photo of Geno, by Charlie Frizzell is the one taken from the book, �Baby Let Me Follow You Down�.
The web site is: www.talkeetna.com. The CD can be ordered from the web site and it can be listened to before purchasing. The photo of Geno is on the web site as well.

-------------------------------------------


Joan Baez/5
Vanguard Records 1964
Produced by Maynard Soloman

Track 3
It Ain�t Me Babe (Bob Dylan)
Geno Foreman- Guitar
This album does not credit Geno with playing guitar.
The same track was released on Baez Sings Dylan Vanguard 1998
Those liner notes state that Geno played guitar as did Joan.

Track 8
When You Hear Them Cuckoos Hollerin�
Accompaniment by Gino (Geno) Foreman, guitar
Traditional

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Flame Schon
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 02:29 PM

There is an excellent review of Dope the movie and interview with me by Ian O'Sullivan in this months Shindig, a music magazine published in the UK, and available worldwide. Geno, his music and connections to others on that scene at the time, is mentioned in the article. You can check out Shindig Magazine on the web, although the article itself is available only in print.
"The rarely screened documentary Dope, by husband and wife directorial team Sheldon and Diane Rochlin .... provides what is possibly the closest filmic insight to what life in London in 1967 was like for those on the inner circle of the counter-culture."..Shindig'09

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Canary Islands
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 07:23 PM

Hi there!

All these messages about Geno are really great, because precisely I've just read "Baby let me follow you down" these days. I got the book some years ago, and I'd only read some parts.. Until that I decided recently to read it entirely.

It's a fabolous text, really wonderful...
It seems incredible all the figures pass by Cambridge and Boston folk-blues scenes. And with that amount of figures, among which I personally mostly adore Richie & Mimi Fariña, Geno looks like one of the more interesting people.

I'd love to listen to some he'd record.
How might I get it?

About the dope dvd, is still available? i've just taken a look on amazon and i've not seen anything about it.

Toni Ruiz
Canary Islands.

ps. I'm writing in Spanish a book -to be released sometime next year- on the folk-blues scenes at the 60's in USA and be sure I'll write about Geno!

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Flame Schon
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 01:32 PM

To Toni Ruiz

The DVD of the movie Dope is available at http://www.dopethemovie.net
(that is: dopethemovie dot net in case URLs get automatically deleted on this site.)

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 04:14 PM

You can e-mail me for more information about Geno:

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jun 09 - 02:22 PM

Haydee, I hope tjis message reaches you. I am betsy siggins and knew both your mom and dad. Before they were married my husband Bob Siggins and I drove from Rome one bitter Christmas, and spent 10 days in an attic apartment in West Berlin. The w all would go up the next summer, but that Christmas was clod and bleak, much music, many naughty trips into east Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie, where Geno would, on purpose, forget one critical documnet to get us back into East Berlin. Pissed off the guards every time, but they kept on letting him go back and forth. East Berlin was deserted and grey, grey, b It was a major adventure for us all. Geno was fearless. ut because it was risky, it felt we had traveled to an unenhabited land.

I used to waitress and once in a while sing at the Golden Vanity ( long gone ) and it was an old warehouse with a ramp. Perfect for Geno and the other Harvard Bikers to ride in in the middle of someone, most likely a delicate balladeer, and chaos broke out,and mostly in fun
I visited you and your mom and grandparents (?) in Puerto Rico when you were about 2. I have a couple of photos from that trip.I know run the New England Folk Music Archives in cambridge. Hope this reaches you, Betsysiggins2gmail.com

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jun 09 - 08:40 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 12:55 PM

Thank you, Betsy, for the sweet memories!

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 10:59 AM

After Geno died I received many beautiful letters from his friends.
Here is one of them:


Nov. 20, 1966
From Albert Maher to Marci Foreman

I am finding the fact of Geno’s death a bad dream that somehow I already had-deja vu- but no, it is really simply that I loved him as my brother and as my brother he is integrated into me as someone I hurt, was hurt by, laughed with, grew with and always marveled at his energy, talent, generosity, and was angry with his egocentricity and stubbornness and indulged myself with the assurance that I would always have him as my friend, and now I weep because he is gone, and in my self centered ignorance I feel with anguish that I took for granted---
                              roll in your friends
                              while you may
                              for tomorrow they
                              are covered with moss.
And it seems the life we are having is terribly brief, and being brief it should contain more blessings than it does, but those blessings being few are more meaningful and Geno was for me a gift of the good goods-a mixed blessing yes ah yes, and I smile to think of the confusion and havoc of our souls….
And it continues, for he gave me touch with people, Clark and Mairi, that continues in the present that is now. And without eulogizing him it is to say the obvious that the terrible intensity with which he lived made him a rare soul to all of us, but for me also a tragic expectancy that the precious child cannot walk the ledge across the river from the Spry sign and not be hurt, but maybe yes it is possible he can, he will. So I argue rationally for staying off ledges, and he exposed the reasoning of the earthbound as the logic of the clerk’s ledger and he was right.
                           and that was six years ago
                           and the genius is gone
                           and I have no words
                           for it maybe when I see
                           you I will
                           you are both very
                           special people in
                           my life,

                                        Love,
                                              Al

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Andrew Preece
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 08:54 PM

hallo Marcia,it was great to find your site out of the blue. I was introduced to Geno in Rome in august 1963 by an afro american Sylvester Reece who said he had met Geno in Africa and that Geno had taught Joan Baez guitar. We met in a room above a cafe and were introduced to Hamza,black as the ace with a wonderful smile and holding an oud, as was Geno, and both in white kaftans I recall.Geno seemed to me to be in his forties , emaciated and pale. he explaned that mosqitos and other insects never bit him as they could see he had nothing to offer. Hamza looked the picture of health. What a contrast. We talked about music and that jazz was my prime interest but I was having problems understanding what Thelonius Monk was all about.I hit the jackpot. Geno launched into Blue Monk on the oud and the veil was lifted from my ears! Thanks Geno, after 46 years I can just about play it on the trombone and it sounds like it came from New Orleans. The pair of them played all afternoon, the most exquisite and subtle interweaving of melodies and rhythms by two masters of their art finishing with a long descriptive piece written by Hamza, simply called " the Nile". Incredible,beautiful music on fretless instruments from way back. It was only one afternoon in my life and I always wondered what had happened to the them until I read the Joan Baez autobiography a couple of years ago.Even the passing off all those years didnt dim the shock and sadness I felt. and he was only my age when we met, a mere 22 or so. After 50 plus years of listening live to giants of many musical forms including Joan and Bob in their prime, that afternoon with Geno and Hamza stands out as a favourite memory in a full life. Thanks again fellas, you were just wonderful. Hope this little bit of detail adds colour to your picture. with love to you both, andrew

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 31 Oct 09 - 09:24 AM

Hi Andrew, Thank you so much for posting your memories of Geno and Hamza.

Peace and love to you, Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 08:51 AM

I'm afraid that Eric VS died recently. So that trail's dead.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 09:04 AM

Some trails never die.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 09:08 AM

Nice to hear about Geno again. I was in the Cambridge folk scene 1957-60.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 10:28 AM

Rest in Peace!

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Geraldine
Date: 20 Nov 09 - 10:13 AM

I apologise that this is totally irreverent but does anyone know what happened to Caroline Thomson of Dope? I saw the film at a special screening in London last night and was blown away but can't seem to locate any information about the original cast.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 09:21 AM

A note from Jesse Cahn (son of Rolf Cahn and Barbara Dane):

Jesse Cahn: "Geno was a legendary Hipster of epic proportions... Heard stories from Charlie Frizzell, Bobby Neuwirth, Teddy Bernstein, etc, etc, I'm sure.."

www.jessecahn.com

He has out a new cd..it is wonderful!


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
More news from children of old friends:


KC Bull, Daughter of Sandy Bull is showing the film she made about her father on Monday, Nov. 23, 2009

Sandy Bull Screening/Show
Type:         
Music/Arts - Concert
Network:         
Global
Start Time:         
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 8:00pm
End Time:         
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 12:00am
Location:         
18 Java St, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Description
Monday Nov. 23rd @ JAVA ST.
8:30pm, $5
18 Java St. in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY, etc.
Oma (16mm short) portrait of Daphne Hellman (Sandy Bull's mom)
Sandy Bull: No Deposit, No Return Blues

http://www.dazedmagonline.com/dazedmag/200910?pg=216#pg216

With music..........
Colin Langenus Acoustic Guitar Orchestra
D Charles Speer
Ramble Tamble
looking into more music

Don't miss this tribute to Sandy Bull!

Peace and love,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,David Piper
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:14 PM

I knew Geno for quite a while, and Clark and Mairi even longer.
Marci, if you're still out there, do you remember the time when I had delivered an Aero Commander to Norway, and since I had two weeks between flights and wasn't anxious to spend them (in November) in Oslo
I came to Rome.   Found you and Geno living in Hadrian's Villa in some sort of camper, and had just been paid so I invited you to come stay at my hotel, have hot showers, and so on. Geno: "No way, man the pigs'll be on our arse in minutes."   Me: "Ah, come on, you're just being paranoid..." Marci: "A hot shower would be kinda nice, and the baby can have a real bath...."   Two hours after arrival: Cops at the door, Bangbangbang, papers please, come with us, ..... and then they let everybody go and went away, leaving me with wtf? expression.

And the time that Clark, Mairi, Geno and I took the train from Laredo to Oaxaca (where I have been living the past twenty years.) Geno insisted o n riding third class, and was his usual, erm, not very sheveled self, with his usual wild look and enthusiastic manner. This frightened the campesinos on the train, and after Geno went to sleep in a corner, an elderly Indian lady apparently decided he was some sort of demon and tried to exorsize him by peeing on him. We had a good time in Oaxaca after that, though.

If I don't disremember, Geno died after Clark and Mairi moved to Puerto Rico. When Clark had his first heart attack, Mairi asked me to go to Puerto Rico and find them a place to retire to, which I did, on top of a mountain outside of Adjuntas, with abandoned orange groves all around and a spectacular view over the mountains to the sea.

Also Hamza el Din stayed on my farm in Pennsylvania for almost a year, while he visited local grade schools on a grant from some government agency or other, and I tried, not very successfully, to teach him to drive. Does anyone know anything about Hamza's presentday whereabouts?

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 09:11 AM

Hello David!

Your message fills my heart with joy!

Please email me at [e-mail]

I have been looking for you!

I am writing a book about Geno's life which will include many stories from friends.

I have created a Face Book page and a My Space page for Geno. There
are some photos and letters and other info.

Sadly, Hamza died in 2006. We spent some time together here in 2003
remembering Geno together. I am in touch with his widow, Nabra.

I look forward to hearing from you,
Peace, love and happiness,
Marci

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 01:06 PM

15 books with references to Geno Foreman

Agee, Joel.
In the House of My Fear, a Memoir. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004.

Baez, Joan.
And a Voice to Sing With, a Memoir. 1987

Cohan, Tony.
Native State, a Memoir. New York: Broadway, 2003.

Dunn, Tim.
The Bob Dylan Copyright Files (1962-2007). 2008.

Durr, Virginia Foster.
Freedom Writer, Virginia Foster Durr, Letters from the Civil Rights Years. Athens: University of Georgia, 2006.

Durr, Virginia Foster.
Outside the Magic Circle, the Autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr. Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama, 1990.

Gill, Andy, and Kevin Odegard.
A Simple Twist of Fate, Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks. New York: Da Capo, 2004.

Hajdu, David.
Positively 4th Street, the Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.

Rotolo, Suze.
A Freewheelin' Time, A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties. New York: Broadway, 2008.

Scadutto, Anthony.
Bob Dylan, an Intimate Biography. 1971.

von Schmidt, Eric and Jim Rooney.
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down, the Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years. Garden City, N.Y: Anchor, 1979.

Shelton, Robert.
No Direction Home, The Life and Music of Bob Dylan. New York: Ballantine, 1987.

Sounes, Howard.
Down the Highway, The Life of Bob Dylan. New York: Grove, 2002.

Spitz, Bob.
Dylan, a Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989.

Trager, Oliver.
Keys to the Rain: the Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. New York: Billboard, 2004.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 10:51 AM

What a fascinating thread. I discovered it yesterday and read through it and wanted to learn more about Geno Foreman. Last night i googled him and found to my surprise that there isn't a Wikipedia entry about him. I think he rates one, being an important figure in the history of the folk revival. There are certainly more obscure artists with whole Wiki articles devoted to them. This could be easily remedied since Wikipedia is billed as the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I'd like to suggest that someone with all the biographical information create an entry.
I definitely want to see the movie "Dope" since being a long-time Shawn Phillips fan I've always loved "The Ballad of Casey Diess" but didn't know anything about the man himself.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 08:30 AM

Hi Neil,

Thanks for your interest in Geno.
I am preparing a biography for Wikipedia.
Peace,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Neil D
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 04:25 PM

Great news. Wikipedia is becoming, if not already, the most commonly used reference source in the world.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 11:20 AM

From Google Books:
19 books with quotes about Geno


1-Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: the Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years
        
Baby, let me follow you down: the illustrated story of the Cambridge folk years‎ - Page 228
Eric Von Schmidt, Jim Rooney - 1994 - 314 pages
GENO FOREMAN with his wife, Marcy, and their child, Geno died in England in ... Photograph courtesy of Betsy Schmidt. in the fall of '63 Geno Foreman had ...

        
2-Dylan: a biography
        
Dylan: a biography‎ - Page 229
Bob Spitz - 1991 - 664 pages
No sooner had Bob arrived than he ran into a friend from Boston named Geno Foreman. Geno was a musician of sorts â€" not a performer or even a talent, ...

3-And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir
        
And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir‎ - Page 56
Joan Baez - 2009 - 384 pages
They had two normal daughters and Geno. The first time Michael and I went to New York we stayed at the Foreman apartment on Ninety-seventh Street and ...

        
4-A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties
        
A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties‎ - Page 270
Suze Rotolo - 2009 - 370 pages
Geno Foreman Came from a distinguished family. Though he was the son of Clark Foreman, the director of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, ...

5-Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi ...
        
Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi ...‎ - Page 167
David Hajdu - 2002 - 336 pages
Geno Foreman, Joan's devilishly eccentric old friend from Cambridge, had brought it to Newport; it was his idea of provocative fun. ...
        
6-Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan
        
Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan‎ - Page 211
Howard Sounes - 2002 - 544 pages
Geno Foreman was an activist friend from Greenwich Village who had developed a drug problem. He approached Bob during the European tour and asked for money ...
        
7-Freedom Writer: Virginia Foster Durr, letters from the Civil Rights Years
        
Freedom writer: Virginia Foster Durr, letters from the civil rights years‎ - Page 177
Virginia Foster Durr, Patricia Sullivan - 2003 - 442 pages
Virginia had great affection for Hugh "Geno" Foreman, the youngest child of Clark and Mairi Foreman, who was born in 1941. Geno was a rebel, an imaginative ...

8-No Direction Home: the Life and Music of Bob Dylan
        
No direction home: the life and music of Bob Dylan‎ - Page 201
Robert Shelton - 2003 - 576 pages
Geno Foreman, Clark Foreman's son who died three years later in an accident, told me that the collection was three thousand dollars short of expectations,...
        
9-LIFE
        
LIFE‎ - Page 112
Magazine - Apr 10, 1964 - v. 56, no. 15 - 132 pages
R bearded "bodyguards," Albert Maher and Geno Foreman, travel with Dylan on concert tours to help protect him from the hordes of teen-age admirers. ...
        
10-The Formative Dylan: Transmission and Stylistic Influences, 1961-1963
        
The formative Dylan: transmission and stylistic influences, 1961-1963‎ - Page 8
Todd Harvey - 2001 - 211 pages
Eric Von Schmidt writes that he learned "Mama, Let Me Lay It on You" from fellow Cambridge musician Geno Foreman in 1958 or 1959. ...

11-A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks
        
A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks‎ - Page 6
Andy Gill, Kevin Odegard - 2005 - 264 pages
Old friends like Richard Farina, Geno Foreman, and Paul Clayton had died â€"Farina in a motorcycle accident, the others through drugs â€" and several of his ...

12-Keys to the Rain: the Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia
        
Keys to the rain: the definitive Bob Dylan encyclopedia‎ - Page 19
Oliver Trager - 2004 - 724 pages
Von Schmidt, in turn, has said that he learned it from an obscure folkie named Geno Foreman, who, according to von Schmidt, ...

        
13-Paul Clayton and the Folksong Revival
        
Paul Clayton and the Folksong Revival‎ - Page 166
Bob Coltman - 2008 - 297 pages
... Geno Foreman, Albert Maher, John Maher, and, for a little while, Paul Clayton. The trip began on February 3. Dylan was setting out to see America, ...

        
14-Bob Dylan
        
Bob Dylan‎ - Page 154
Anthony Scaduto - 1972 - 280 pages
Among the Dylan entourage was Geno Foreman, son of Clark Foreman of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. Geno was a young folksinger, part of the crowd ...
        
15-The Bill of Rights Journal
        
The Bill of Rights journal, Volumes 1-10‎ - Page 38
National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (U.S.) - 1968
... National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees RWDSU/AFL-CIO Leon J.Davis, President. In memory of HUGH (Geno) FOREMAN Edith Tiger, John Pickering ...

16-Native State: a memoir
        
Native state: a memoir‎ - Page 112
Tony Cohan - 2003 - 336 pages
Geno Foreman crooned, steam bursting from his cracked lips. Grinning through shattered teeth, he fished a rumpled nickel bag of pale Lebanese hash from his ...
        
17-Touched by the Hand of Bob: Epiphanal Bob Dylan Experiences from a Buick Six
        
Touched by the hand of Bob: epiphanal Bob Dylan experiences from a Buick Six‎ - Page 20
Dave Henderson - 2001 - 170 pages
... from the Library Of Congress and 'Baby, Let Me Follow You Down', which I learnt from Geno Foreman, the son of Clark Foreman, the Civil Rights leader. ...

18-Joan Baez: a Bio-Bibliography
        
Joan Baez: a bio-bibliography‎
Charles J. Fuss - 1996 - 252 pages
Page 3-No quote cited.

19-Vita e musica di Bob Dylan
        
Vita e musica di Bob Dylan‎ - Page 148
Robert Shelton, R. Bertoncelli - 1987 - 416 pages
Geno Foreman, il figlio di Clark Foreman, morto di lì a tre anni in un incidente , mi disse che la raccolta era stata di tremila dollari inferiore alle ...

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 29 May 10 - 08:40 AM

May 29, 2010

To honor Geno Foreman's 69th birthday today I have up loaded a photo of him on his Face Book fan page (link below)from 1954, age 13, when he was a student at The Putney School in Vermont. While there he was introduced to Folk Music and met Debbie Green. That experience changed his life. He soon had his beloved Stella banjo and learned it quickly.
Three years later, (age 16) on Nov.11, 1957 he recorded at Doug Dobell's Jazz Record Shop in London with Shirley Bland and Jim McGregor. The 78 record was released in 1958 on the label 77 Records.
Recording and Supervision by John R. T. Davis
Side One:
"Go Tell Aunt Rhodie" (Trad. arr. McGregor)
"Geno's Breakdown" (Foreman)
"Cripple Creek" (Trad. arr. McGregor)
Side Two:
"Foggy Mountain Top" (Carter)
"Sister Phoebe" (Trad. arr. McGregor)
Doug Dobell generously sent me the tape of that recording session after Geno died.
Peace and love,
Marcia

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Stefan Wirz
Date: 29 May 10 - 02:14 PM

Hi Marcia,
seems to me that that record on the "77" label is rather in the "EP" series than a 78 rpm (5 tracks!)
--- see my (rather incomplete ;-) 77 Records discography
Stefan

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 30 May 10 - 10:24 AM

Hi Stefan,
Thanks for your message! I love your web site and looked at it long ago for any evidence of this album. I have the vinyl and have scanned the images of the label which are on Geno's Face Book fan page. It says 77 78/4. The vinyl is 12" but I am unable to play it as the paper sleeve has been glued to it from water damage. I do have the little tape which Doug sent to me but have not have it restored so far.
Take a look at the images on Geno's FB page and let me know what you think.
The album is titled "American Folk Songs". There is an image of the cover which Geno drew.
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 30 May 10 - 10:32 AM

Stefan-
I see that you do have it on your web site!
I have an old flyer from 77 Records at that time which you may like to include. I'll scan it for you.
Send me your email to:
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 31 May 10 - 04:26 PM

More information about Doug Dobell and his Dobell's Jazz Record shop in London..
http://vzone.virgin.net/davidh.taylor/dobell.htm

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 31 May 10 - 04:39 PM

77 Records
by Paige VanVorst
We announced the purchase of 77 Records many years ago, in the 39th Anniversary Celebration Issue of JazzBeat’s ancestor, the CRC Jazz Journal. We’ve put out LPs and CDs over the years from the wealth of material purchased in 1988, but we’ve never finished the job. Until now.
Barry Martyn, who served as the middleman in the transaction that brought 77 Records into the GHB-Jazzology fold, always felt guilty about the various 77 sessions languishing in our files. He also felt guilty about the number of those sessions that featured his band, but when he was active importing New Orleans talent to England, Doug Dobell was in his most active period as a record producer, and the result was that most of the musicians who toured England for Barry and Keith Smith, the other prime presenter of New Orleans attractions, wound up recording for 77.
With this massive release we’re bringing back to print some of the earliest material recorded for 77 adding, where possible, additional material and combining together sessions that were individually too short to make up a decently lengthed CD.
The 77 Records story begins in 1946, when Douglas Dobell returned to London after seven years in the Army. He went to work for his father, who ran an antiquarian bookshop at 77 Charing Cross Road in London. The Dobell family were well-established members of a flourishing bookstore district; Doug’s grandfather had begun the district when he founded his store many years earlier.
Dobell’s father noted that he had attracted a following- young men would come in to talk eagerly to Doug then leave without taking any interest in the store’s stock of priceless first editions. These were early British record collectors, getting together after being dispersed during the War.
Dobell suggested to his father that an unused corner of the store could be put to good use selling records and the father reluctantly agreed. In May 1946 the record department of Dobell’s was officially open for business. The opening of the store coincided with a relaxing in record marketing in England, as there were independent record companies for the first time challenging the major labels, and Dobell’s became an important outlet for smaller labels, also importing various American labels of the time.
As time went on the record business kept expanding and Doug hired various assistants to take care of the business. The uneasy truce between the book and record portions of the store continued until 1955 when Dobell’s father retired and the rare books were phased out.
The firm expanded into the record business in 1957 when Dobell began the 77 label, named simply for the address of the store. He couldn’t have begun at a better time- the trad boom was soon to hit England and many of the artists he recorded first became an important par of that genre, including Acker Bilk, Bob Wallis, Dick Charlesworth and Diz Disley.
The 77 label was not strictly a traditional jazz label, though it was always strongly associated with traditional jazz. The early catalog also included folk music and the blues and over time Doug Dobell also recorded a number of the mainstream musicians who toured England in great numbers after Union restrictions on touring by American jazzmen were relaxed during the 1960’s. Some of the label’s early stars became famous later- Bob Dylan recorded for 77’s affiliated Folklore label as Blind Boy Grunt, and Ginger Baker, later famous at the superstar drummer with Cream and Blind Faith, appears in this release with Bob Wallis’ Storyville Jazzmen, playing in his best Baby Dodds style.
Doug Dobell was also very active in swapping sessions with his American counterparts- a number of 77s early releases were leased from Delmark, Euphonic, Arhoolie, Folk Lyric and other labels, and at least one 77 album- the first session featuring Kid Thomas’ own working band, was issued in the US by Arhoolie.
There was even a foray into film-making - Doug Dobell produced “Living Jazzâ€쳌 in 1960, featuring the Bruce Turner Jump Band in an attempt to film a jazz band as it really performed, rather than a Hollywood version of what a jazz band should look like.
The label really hit its stride in the mid-60’s. Dobell established Agate & Co, under the leadership of Bill Colyer, to market its products overseas, and the store was thriving and a flood of visiting American jazzmen went into the studios for 77. Dobell was a pianist himself and produced a number of excellent solo piano sessions featuring American artists like Dick Wellstood, Ralph Sutton, Don Ewell and Joe Turner, as well as the cream of the British jazz scene.
Barry Martyn’s first big promotion was in 1966 when he brought Kid Sheik and Capt John Handy for a tour of Britain. Dobell was reluctant to record yet another old New Orleans jazzman but Martyn convinced him to walk the block from his house to one of their gigs and after one number Dobell announced, “I want to make a series of albums with this man.â€쳌
And he did. Barry Martyn said they spent most of the month of March1966 recording, often all night, working in the various tour dates he had booked during the day, traveling by bus and truck all over the United Kingdom.
The company continued to operate throughout the sixties and seventies- the last new sessions were recorded about 1979. During the early eighties Dobell sold off various sessions from the catalog to other companies; most of the New Orleans items went to GHB/Jazzology. See the centerfold of this issue for a full display of the items originating on the 77 label that we’ve already issued.
Doug Dobell died of a heart attack in 1987 while in Nice, France to attend a jazz festival. He was sixty-nine.
One of the important functions of the GHB/Jazzology group of labels is to preserve the output of many of the smaller labels that existed over the years- Doug Dobell did the same sort of thing when he ran 77- he put out a number of sessions featuring seriously-neglected American mainstream musicians that were leased from minute American labels- seldom-recorded men like Herman Autrey, Jack McVea, Harry Dial and Bernard Addison appeared on 77. It seemed ironic that you should have to order their records from England when they lived and worked in the US, but only Doug Dobell had any interest in that sort of music. For that we should all be eternally grateful.
We’re proud to own a large segment of the output of 77 Records, and with this release we’ve finally finished what we set out to do initially in 1988- release the remaining material from the 77 label

Barry Martyn adds the following remembrance of Doug Dobell:
Doug Dobell was a rather wonderful man. He was basically a jazz fan. Perhaps too much of a jazz fan. From the time he occupied a corner of his father’s bookstore on London’s Charing Cross Road, until he operated his own jazz record store across the street, he never once lost sight of his love of jazz and the musicians who played it. He was somewhat of a contradiction in terms in his professional life. He was an astute business man on the one hand yet he could be the most generous friend on the other. As an example of this...I brought George Lewis to England, under the auspices of the Manchester Sports Guild for his last tour. The money I had planned to make was going to be used to bring Louis Nelson on his first European tour. I imagined that Louis’ introductory tour would lose money, but George’s would be a fiscal success and one would cancel the other. No such luck... George fell victim to ill health and was hospitalized...the tour went into the red in a big way. Nelson’s tour, as predicted, followed suit and I was left on the verge of bankruptcy. I owed Doug several hundred pounds and decided to confront him with the “promise to pay laterâ€쳌 clause. Up to this time my relationship with him had been strictly a business one. I was about to learn that he had a heart like a buffalo’s butt. Most people would have hit the roof and threatened lawsuits but Doug simply said, “Can I loan you a few hundred pounds until you get straight?â€쳌 I never forgot the way that he did it. It was like everything about him...low key.
Low key was the best way to describe his record label. It was called, simply, “77 Recordsâ€쳌 from his address at 77 Charing Cross Road. It started with the occasional 78 rpm issue ant hen maybe an odd ten-inch album of limited quantity. As the years went by he recorded more and more. Practically every visiting US jazz artist, blues men, folk singers, big bands...as long as it was good and he felt he was helping jazz, he recorded it. He had one or two minor hits, but the music was too good and he was too much of a jazz fan to bother with the more commercial stuff. The label had respect, which meant more to Doug.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 20 Jun 10 - 04:47 PM

The New England Folk Music Archives, founded by Betsy Siggins and based in Cambridge, MA, has, as part of it's collection, a tribute to Geno Foreman

http://www.newenglandfolkmusic.org/application.html#/home/

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman _to Neil D,
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 07:25 PM

Here's a link to a review of Dope by Bonny Finberg, American poet who lives mainly in Paris which came out online at Tribes in May I think:

http://www.tribes.org/web/2010/05/17/dope-1968-a-film-by-diane-rochlin-flame-schon-and-sheldon-rochlin/'

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Flame
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 10:11 PM

sorry try this link to Bonny Finberg's review of Dope
http://www.tribes.org/web/2010/05/17/dope-1968-a-film-by-diane-rochlin-flame-schon-and-sheldon-rochlin/

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 10:14 PM

maybe this time it works

http://www.tribes.org/web/2010/05/17/dope-1968-a-film-by-diane-rochlin-flame-schon-and-sheldon-rochlin/

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 04:33 PM

Brion Gysin was a good friend of Geno Foreman's in the 1960s in Paris.

There is a wonderful exhibit at the New Museum in NYC of his amazing work.


http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/422/brion_gysin_dream_machine

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 04:37 PM

7/7/10 - 10/3/10
Brion Gysin: Dream Machine
Multimedia available

The New Museum will present "Brion Gysin: Dream Machine," the first US retrospective of the work of the painter, performer, poet, and writer Brion Gysin (born 1916, Taplow, UK–died 1986, Paris). Working simultaneously in a variety of mediums, Gysin was an irrepressible inventor, serial collaborator, and subversive spirit whose considerable innovations continue to influence musicians and writers, as well as visual and new media artists today. The exhibition will include over 300 drawings, books, paintings, photo-collages, films, slide projections, and sound works, as well as an original Dreamachine—a kinetic light sculpture that utilizes the flicker effect to induce visions when experienced with closed eyes. "Brion Gysin: Dream Machine" is curated by Laura Hoptman, Kraus Family Senior Curator, and will be on view in the New Museum's second floor gallery.

"An exhibition of an artist who died more than twenty years ago represents an approach to the notion of the new that is somewhat different from the Museum's standard—one that emphasizes relevance and fresh information over chronology, and brings to the fore a relatively neglected yet very influential innovator who continues to have a strong impact on artists working today," said Laura Hoptman.

In 1959, Gysin created the Cut-Up Method, in which words and phrases were literally cut up into pieces and then rearranged to untether them from their received meanings and reveal new ones. His Cut-Up experiments, which he shared with his lifelong friend and collaborator William S. Burroughs, culminated in Burroughs and Gysin's The Third Mind, a book-length collage manifesto on the Cut-Up Method and its uses. Transferring this notion to experimenting with tape-recorded poems manipulated by a computer algorithm, Gysin created sound poetry and was among the earliest users of the computer in art. At the same creative moment, Gysin conceived of the Dreamachine. During the '60s, '70s, and '80s, Gysin would continue his collaborations, and prove to be a mentor for myriad artists, poets, and musicians, from John Giorno to Brian Jones, to David Bowie and Patti Smith, to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Keith Haring, among many others.

"Brion Gysin: Dream Machine" will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue co-published with Hugh Merrell, Ltd., featuring essays by Laura Hoptman; John Geiger, literary scholar and author of the definitive Gysin biography; Gerard Audinet, Chief Curator of the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, which houses Gysin's artistic estate; James Grauerholz, Gysin's friend and literary executor; as well as appreciations by contemporary artists, musicians, and poets including George Condo, Paul Elliman, Ugo Rondinone, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Cerith Wyn Evans, Shannon Ebner, Trisha Donnelly, and Sue de Beer.

Banner image: Brion Gysin with Dreamachine at Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris, 1962. Courtesy William S. Burroughs Trust, Lawrence, Kansas. © Harold Chapman/Topham/The Image Works
Sponsors TOP

Major lead support for "Brion Gysin: Dream Machine" provided by Shane Akeroyd and Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip Aarons.

Generous grants have also been provided by the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Terra Foundation

This exhibition is also made possible by generous contributions from Lonti Ebers and J. Bruce Flatt, the Robert Lehman Foundation, and The Robert Mapplethorpe Photography Fund. Additional support provided by Susan Hancock and Hilary and Peter Hatch.

Support for the accompanying publication is made possible by the J. McSweeney and G. Mills Publications Fund at the New Museum.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 09:14 AM

Fedor Gouvenuer wrote to me this beautiful letter and mentioned the last time he saw Brion Gysin:

Dear Marcia,
Many many moons ago I said goodbye to Geno (and you?) for the last time. He woke me up in the middle of a NYC night to inform me that he was on his way to England via Canada, rather precipitously, as the authorities were very keen to interview him regarding "a planned visit by Geno and some of his friends to the statue of Liberty"! He also informed me of the good news that he intended to get married .......to you and that for that he would probably need a jacket so I gave him my favorite italian jacket. Tragically, sadly, I never saw him again. I seem to recall a communication informing me that my dear dear friend Geno had passed away and had had a baby daughter. I recall a message from you from Puerto Rico where you had moved to. I tried to write to you once or twice but never got an answer. However the proof of my love for Geno is that I've never forgotten him and I'm excited by the possibility that through the Internet I might reconnect to his memory through you.
How I met Geno. I was sitting one afternoon at Rienzi's or the Figaro where I was having a coffee after visiting the Cuban UN mission office where I was given a bunch of books and magazines. The books and magazines were on the table when suddenly Geno who I did not know, noticed the books and asked me " are you Simon's brother?" That entirely blew me away, as indeed I was Simon's brother!!! "Who are you and how do you know me and my brother???" He sat down at my table and went on to explain how he had met Simon, my brother, in Rome and how he became a good friend of Simon. Simon had mentioned to Geno that he had a brother called Fedor, me, who lived in NYC. On the basis of that tip, Geno decided out of the blue, and only having seen the literature on my table that I must be Simon's NYC brother!!!!!! We became friends and I've never forgotten him. I've even had the fantasy thought of doing something to memorialize him if only I could find some of his old friends. I had the certainty that anyone who had known Geno would be pleased with the idea. Geno was very easy to love and was loved by all kinds of people. Having gone through a million changes I found myself living in Cairo, where I lived for nearly 40 years. In my early years in Cairo I met Hamza the Sudanese udist or Lutenist. We reminisced about dear Geno who Hamza informed me was the person who arranged his travel to Italy and finally to the States. I also had the opportunity of remembering Geno the last time I saw Brian Gysin. Anyway I hope that all of these ancient memories are not just dreams. Its been so long that one never knows. Please write me and reassure me. Warmest regards Fedor Gouverneur

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Liz Thomson
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 05:25 PM

I didn't - wrong age, wrong place (born in London in 1957) but I've always been fascinated by the sixties folk seen and am currently working on a director's cut of the Dylan biog by my late friend and mentor Robert Shelton. Does anyone have any memories or photos to share? Wd love to track down photos of Shelton with Village musicians, including of course Dylan. Thanks.
email: [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 01:15 PM

http://greenwichvillagemusicfestival.ning.com/video/grammy-hall-of-fame-winner-1?commentId=6290841%3AComment%3A2049&xg_source=fa

Wonderful web site and video of Judy Collins talking about the early sixties in Greenwich Village

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 02:15 PM

thankyou, marcia , that was interesting.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 10:20 AM

Video of Greenwich Village in the 60's. Many Folk Singers at Washington Square where I used be every Sunday.

http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x8qbl

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 15 Nov 10 - 09:49 AM

Today, Nov. 15th, is the anniversary of Geno's death in London at the age of 25. It turns out he had Ulcerative Colitis which perforated and was missed by the doctor in the hospital. He was sent home instead of being admitted to the hospital and he died four days later from blood poisoning.
I've been reading old letters from his friends and found several of them on line.
Rainer Hachfeld, a fabulous political cartoonist has sent me three new photos of Geno from 1963 in Berlin.
Here is the link to Rainer's page of cartoons:

http://www.rainerhachfeld.de/main/index.php?view=cartoons&kat=1ℑ=1625&submit=Ok

Here is the link to Geno's Face Book page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts

Peace and love, Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 09:08 AM

I have a message from Yaak Karsunke in Berlin today... he is sending me a poem he wrote for Geno and some letters and other papers about Geno!

It is so wonderful to be meeting these old friends of Geno's who loved him, and remember him so well.

Here is a link to an interview with Yaak... I posted a photo of him on Geno's Face Book page.

http://deptorg.knox.edu/catch/2006fall/non/divers.html

Peace and love,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 26 Nov 10 - 08:55 AM

You can now listen to Geno Foreman playing guitar with Joan Baez singing on You Tube. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epoMnWLeE68

I hope you enjoy it!

Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 10 - 12:23 AM

Marcia
Thank you for what you said about Gino's and my friendship!
I hadn't visited the site in 5 years so just read your '05 post a few
days after Thanksgiving 2010. About my reference to Gino's death,
If i recall, the drug OD was something I got from Clark % Mairi, or maybe Shelagh.
I apologize for any mis-information I perpetuated.

I have always been blown away by the memory of Gino's coming up to me, after I read some poetry, at the Gate. One of the very first things he
said to me was that he wanted me to neet his parents! I stayed in touch,
with Clark and Mairi and eventually visited them, in Adjuntas, in 1976.
Clark dies the next year. His death was a great loss for the world of music and for his friends and family.
Bob [[e-mail]]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 10 - 12:17 PM

ps after re-reading my post, i realized that what I wrote - meaning Gino
right after I mentioned when Clark died, is mis-leading. I hope this clarification will eliminate the unintended ambiguity.
Bob

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 29 Nov 10 - 12:33 PM

Hi Bob,
I'm so happy you came back to Mudcat to read about Geno!
I remember seeing you here in Santa Fe and telling you the story of Geno's death. I know his family knew the story as well since I showed them his Death Certificate. But rumors of the cause of death about musicians are many and often untrue.
Peace and love,
Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Dec 10 - 06:33 PM

Hi, Marcia
Thanks for your welcome which is really nice to read :)
And my further apologies for the drug
reference.
All good wishes for the New Year.
Be well.
Blessings
Bob

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 09:54 AM

Hi Bob,
And thank you for message!
Best wishes to you for a wonderful and happy Christmas and New Year.
Take a look at Geno's page I have for him. It has a lot of new info about old friends of his I have met recently.
Also many photos.
Peace and love,
Marcia
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Bob Freedman
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 02:31 AM

Hi, Narcia

Do I have to be a Facebook subscriber to visit Geno's page?

Also, am wondering, did Geno ever talk about Danny Chval?

With love and peace and blessings

Bob

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 08:45 AM

Hi Bob,

You do not have to be a member of Face Book to see Geno's page.

Geno wrote a beautiful poem for Dan Chval which I will send to you by email. Dan's death affected Geno very deeply. They were like brothers and had known each other since they were very young.

Peace and love to you,

Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 01 Mar 11 - 09:58 AM

SUZE ROTOLO was a good friend of Geno Foreman's. How sad she died so young!
I will always remember her warm friendship (Marcia)
Rest in Peace dear Suze.

Suze Rotolo, a Face, With Bob Dylan, of '60s Music, Is Dead at 67
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: March 1, 2011   
       Suze Rotolo, who became widely known for her romance with Bob Dylan in the early 1960s, strongly influenced his early songwriting and, in one of the decade's signature images, walked with him arm-in-arm for the cover photo of his breakthrough album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 67.
The cause was lung cancer, her husband, Enzo Bartoccioli, said.

Ms. Rotolo (she pronounced her name SU-zee ROTE-olo) met Mr. Dylan in Manhattan in July 1961 at a Riverside Church folk concert, where he was a performer. She was 17; he was 20.

"Right from the start I couldn't take my eyes off her," Mr. Dylan wrote in his memoir, "Chronicles: Volume 1," published in 2004. "She was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid's arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard."

In "A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties" (2008), Ms. Rotolo described Mr. Dylan as "oddly old-time looking, charming in a scraggly way."

They began seeing each other almost immediately and soon moved in together in a walk-up apartment on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village.

The relationship was intense but beset with difficulties. He was a self-invented troubadour from Minnesota on the brink of stardom. She was the Queens-bred daughter of Italian Communists with her own ideas about life, art and politics that made it increasingly difficult for her to fulfill the role of helpmate, or, as she put it in her memoir, a "boyfriend's 'chick,' a string on his guitar."

Her social views, especially her commitment to the civil rights movement and her work for the Congress for Racial Equality, were an important influence on Mr. Dylan's writing, evident in songs like "The Death of Emmett Till," "Masters of War" and "Blowin' in the Wind." Her interest in theater and art exposed him to ideas and artists beyond the world of music.

"She'll tell you how many nights I stayed up and wrote songs and showed them to her and asked her: 'Is this right'?" Mr. Dylan told the music critic and Dylan biographer Robert Shelton. "Because her father and her mother were associated with unions and she was into this equality-freedom thing long before I was."

When, to his distress, she went to Italy for several months in 1962, her absence inspired the plaintive love songs "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Boots of Spanish Leather," "One Too Many Mornings" and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time."

Mr. Dylan later alluded to their breakup and criticized her mother and sister, who disapproved of him, in the bitter "Ballad in Plain D."

Ms. Rotolo spent most of her adult life pursuing a career as an artist and avoiding questions about her three-year affair with Mr. Dylan. (He was, she wrote, "an elephant in the room of my life.") She relented after Mr. Dylan published his autobiography. She appeared as an interview subject in "No Direction Home," the 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary about Mr. Dylan, before writing "A Freewheelin' Time."

Susan Elizabeth Rotolo was born on Nov. 20, 1943, in Brooklyn and grew up in Sunnyside and Jackson Heights, Queens. Her mother, from Piacenza, Italy, was an editor and columnist for the American version of L'Unità, published by the Italian Communist Party. Her father, from Sicily, was an artist and union organizer who died when she was 14.

Artistically inclined, she began haunting Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village as the folk revival gathered steam, while taking part in demonstrations against American nuclear policy and racial injustice. She adopted the unusual spelling of her nickname, Susie, after seeing the Picasso collage "Glass and Bottle of Suze."

The famous photograph of her and Mr. Dylan, taken by Don Hunstein on a slushy Jones Street in February 1963, seemed less than momentous to her at the time, and she later played down her instant elevation to a strange kind of celebrity status as the girl in the picture.

"It was freezing out," she told The New York Times in 2008. "He wore a very thin jacket, because image was all. Our apartment was always cold, so I had a sweater on, plus I borrowed one of his big, bulky sweaters. On top of that I put on a coat. So I felt like an Italian sausage. Every time I look at that picture, I think I look fat."

The album, Mr. Dylan's second, included anthems like "Blowin' in the Wind," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."

After Ms. Rotolo returned from Italy — a trip engineered by her mother in a move to separate her from Mr. Dylan — the relationship became more difficult. Mr. Dylan was becoming increasingly famous and spending more time performing on the road, and he entered into a very public affair with Joan Baez, with whom he had begun performing.

Ms. Rotolo moved out of their West Fourth Street apartment in August 1963 and, after discovering she was pregnant, had an illegal abortion.

By mid-1964 she and Mr. Dylan had drifted apart. "I knew I was an artist, but I loved poetry, I loved theater, I loved too many things," Ms. Rotolo told The Times. "Whereas he knew what he wanted and he went for it."

In "Chronicles," Mr. Dylan wrote: "The alliance between Suze and me didn't turn out exactly to be a holiday in the woods. Eventually fate flagged it down and it came to a full stop. It had to end. She took one turn in the road and I took another."

In 1967 she married Mr. Bartoccioli, a film editor she had met while studying in Perugia. The couple lived in Italy before moving to the United States in the 1970s. In addition to her husband, she is survived by their son, Luca, of Brooklyn, and her sister, Carla, of Sardinia.

Ms. Rotolo worked as a jewelry maker, illustrator and painter before turning to book art, fabricating booklike objects that incorporate found objects.

She remained politically active. In 2004, using the pseudonym Alla DaPie, she joined the street-theater group Billionaires for Bush and protested at the Republican convention in Manhattan.
A version of this article appeared in print on March 1, 2011, on page B15 of the New York edition.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Bill the Collie
Date: 01 Mar 11 - 10:25 AM

Another sad loss

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 01 Mar 11 - 02:06 PM

Suze Rotolo died on Feb. 24, 2011. She wrote beautifully about Geno in her book.

"A Freewheelin' Time: a Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties" - Page 270

"Geno Foreman came from a distinguished family. Though he was the son of Clark Foreman, the director of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, the group that had given Bob the Tom Paine Award, Geno didn't seem to be from any family. It was as if he just flowed loose in the world with an extraterrestrial energy. He was about six feet tall, with very dark, thick hair and a full beard, and he was missing some front teeth. His dark fiery eyes darted about as fast as his words when he spoke.
..............
I don't remember when I saw Geno again-later that day or weeks afterward- but he had no sense of gaffe or an offense because Geno wouldn't intentionally hurt a fly. Geno. Man. Geno was beautiful, brilliant and irrepressible. He was the mad prince in the kingdom of the mad ones. He married and fathered a child and died in a freak accident in England a few years later."

CODICIL
"Sadness so overwhelming it takes the breath away. Numbness affects the ability to move the body, and brain fog hampers vision. The slightest thing can bring on a bout of crying. Constricted throat, burning insides, dull aches. Nothing matters but what went wrong or what can go wrong now that something is beginning to feel wrong. There is a wicked, hideous, backbiting enemy in cahoots with instinct to beat the daylights out of white-hot sentiment. No contest. Everything is obliterated."

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 21 May 11 - 10:37 AM

May 29th is Geno's birthday. He would have been 70 years old.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 29 May 11 - 08:55 AM

Today is Geno's birthday. May 29, 1941
He would have been 70 years old!

Listen to him play with Joan Baez on her album 5, Vanguard, 1964.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epoMnWLeE68

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 02:35 PM

Hey Marcia...
Hope you are well!
Could you tell me a little bit about Geno's relationship with Joan Baez?
I never did get the chance to meet Geno but I've seen Joanie around a few times.
I was always under the impression that Geno was close to Bob Dylan but the other day when I was glancing through Joan's autobiography, I found a very touching paragraph that she wrote about Geno... How exactly did they know one another?

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Aggie
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 02:37 PM

Hey Marcia...
Hope you are well!
Could you tell me a little bit about Geno's relationship with Joan Baez?
I never did get the chance to meet Geno but I've seen Joanie around a few times.
I was always under the impression that Geno was close to Bob Dylan but the other day when I was glancing through Joan's autobiography, I found a very touching paragraph that she wrote about Geno... How exactly did they know one another?
Aggie

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 22 Jun 11 - 11:35 AM

Hi Aggie,

Sorry to take so long to respond. I've been really busy here!

I will write about Joan Baez and Geno in the book about his life.

Meantime, you can read much more in "Baby Let Me Follow You Down".

Peace, Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 08 Jul 11 - 04:32 PM

AND A VOICE TO SING WITH -- A MEMOIR


PART TWO: "RIDER, PLEASE PASS BY"

1. "FILL THEE UP MY LOVING CUP"

After high school we moved to Boston. My father had a new job at M.I.T. and I had been rejected at every school except Boston University's School of Drama.

Traveling across country with my mother and sisters, we heard the commercial songs of the budding folk music boom for the first time, the Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" and "Scotch and Soda." Before I turned into a snob and learned to look down upon all commercial folk music as bastardized and unholy, I loved the Kingston Trio. When I became one of the leading practitioners of "pure folk," I still loved them, but kept their albums stuffed at the back of the rack.

Shortly after we'd arrived at our new house in Belmont, Massachusetts, not far from Boston and Harvard Square, my father took us to see a new phenomenon, the "coffee houses," where you could order a cup of coffee or tea, no alcohol, and sit around in a stimulating intellectual atmosphere. The Harvard students brought in their books to study, and people played guitars and banjos and sang.

We went into a tiny, smoky, jam-packed coffee house called Tulla's Coffee Grinder. My father saw young minds interlocked in Socratic dialogues, expanding their horizons of knowledge and understanding, or simply reading books and playing chess. I saw the guy under the tiny orange lamp, leaning over his classical guitar, his hair a soft yellow in the diffused light, playing "Plaisir d'Amour." I was entranced. I wanted a classical guitar, I wanted to learn that beautiful, sweet, haunting melody, and I wanted to move into Harvard Square and fall in love with every guitar player and singer I met, and never think about going to college or studying or taking exams or being normal.

My first day at Boston University I made friends with Debbie and Margie, who looked like the only other nonconformists in the freshman class. They, along with myself, refused to wear beanies to the freshman class picnic, a horrible affair held in a smelly old lodge in the country in a rainstorm. The three of us fell in love that very day with a sort of psychotic, James Dean- -looking youth (also beanieless), who fell in love with all of us, one at a time, starting with me because I was the most aggressive and had cornered him under a tree in the rain and hurled a series of homemade Zen puzzles at him. We three maidens all loved folk music, and as he switched from flower to flower, we became closer, and when he finally quit school and went home to his wife, we soothed and mended our broken hearts with song.

Although I officially lived at home, I would drive my ninety-nine dollar blue-green Studebaker to school, stay for a class or two, and then go to Margie's. The three of us spent hours in her tiny apartment on Plympton Street in Harvard Square. Margie baked bread (after letting the dough rise twice on the radiator); Debbie taught me new songs and how to really play the guitar. And we practiced duets, "Fair and Tender Maidens" appropriately being our finest offering. She also taught me "All My Trials," a song which would be one of my "most requested" over the years to come. Debbie and Margie, to my constant envy and frustration, had waist-length hair. I had cut mine short just before leaving California, and now waited impatiently for it to grow out into tresses so that I could be like them, and like all the fair and tender maidens in all of the long and tragic ballads. The. melodic, repetitive songs of love forsaken spoke to my young and fragile heart, and I would sometimes get so carried away with a song that I wept while trying to learn it.

Cold blows the wind o'er my true love
And gently drops the rain
I've never had but one true love
And in Greenwood he lies slain.

And poor young Geordie ...

Geordie will be hanged in a golden chain
Tis not the chain of many
He stole sixteen of the king's wild deer
And sold them in Boheny.

And Geordie's lover . . .

Two pretty babies have I born
A third lies in my body
I'd gladly give you them, every one
If you'll spare the life of Geordie.

And our theme song, "Fair and Tender Maidens" ...

Come all ye fair and tender maidens
Take warning how you court young men
They're like a star of a summer's morning
First they appear, and then they're gone.

I met blues singers, the most famous in the area being Eric Von Schmidt. He looked like a grizzly bear with granny glasses, and his best-known song was about a grizzly bear. At Margie's, I listened to all of her Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) records. I loved Eric's white blues and Ledbetter's black, but I could not sing the blues. A blues song had to be belted low, mean, chesty and soulful. I sang high and pure (and very white), and it was for what Bob Shelton later referred to as an "achingly pure soprano" that I was becoming known. Debbie and I began going out to coffee houses and singing our duets. We scanned the smoky room for our respective princes, inevitably discovered the same adorable boy at the same time, sang our hearts out, or got the giggles. Or both. Jesus, I was only seventeen! I bought a Goya classical guitar with gut strings. I learned "Plaisir d'Amour." And I wanted to fall in love.

I did not understand then that in my tender narcissism I was reaching out for what someone recently described to me as a "tattered remnant of my Own self." An outlaw, a savage, someone who understood what it was to be "different" and could enter my secret garden and leave the blemished and terrifying world of adults and reality outside.

Many years later I wrote a song made up of titles and characters from the folk songs I had learned in Harvard Square.

Ah, the time spent in the foggy dew
With the raven and the dove
Barefoot she walked the winter streets
In search of her own true love.

For she was Mary Hamilton
Lover of John Riley
And a maid of constant sorrow
And the mother of the doomed Geordie.

One day by the banks of the river
Midst tears and gossamer
Sweet Michael rowed his boat ashore
And came to rescue her.

Sweet Michael was perfection. Aside from the compulsory mop of tousled hair, he was handsome, bright, intense, sexy, and talented, but also troubled and preoccupied, with a hint of a wounded look in his lovely blue eyes. It seems to me that I knew all that in the first glance when he rowed over to where I was sitting wistfully plunking my new Goya and singing on the banks of the Charles. We exchanged looks and shy hellos, and then the song was over and he was gone. I heard later that he was expelled from the Harvard rowing team for loafing.

I was smitten. I began haunting the streets late at night, peering into the busy hangouts and bookstores, and, of course, my already familiar coffee houses. In a matter of days I spotted him in Hayes Bickford's cafe, a fluorescent-lit cafeteria which sold awful food and attracted droves of students because it was cheap and open twenty-four hours a day. I stood barefoot on the pavement and stared at him through the big dirty windowpane. He stared back and neither of us made a move. I walked around the block with heart and mind in a dither, and when I came back his chair was empty, but his friend was still there. I charged into the busy room which smelled of cigarette butts and Franco-American spaghetti, sat myself down in the empty chair and pumped his friend for information.

Michael studied Greek. Perfect. He was from the West Indies. Dazzling. He spoke French, did not have a girlfriend, and, yes, had noticed me, in my bohemian knitted and tasseled garb and bare feet, gaping at him from the sidewalk. What a fortuitous beginning. Our meeting was arranged. We fell in love and became inseparable.

I told my mother I needed some birth control. "Do you love him?" she asked, and then sent me off to a doctor, who reluctantly fit me for a diaphragm. Birth control was illegal in Massachusetts in 1958.

Margie loaned us her apartment and at long last, after years of telling myself I would go to hell if I did "it" (and Michael agonizing because he was sure I had already done "it" plenty of times and was lying to him), I finally knew that my body was making more sense than my Spanish demons. "it" was marvelous, and for quite some time after, Michael and I spent most of our energy figuring out' where we could go to do "it" next.

And so, in the winter of 1958 my eighteenth birthday found me deeply in love, as in love as I would ever be in my life. I had found my fellow savage, rebel, soul mate, a nineteen-year-old West Indian would-be poet, actor, writer, sailor, philosopher, wonderboy. Michael went to classes occasionally, and I dropped out of school completely. We were together every possible moment. When I first saw snowflakes on Michael's hair, they looked so beautiful that I wanted to be one of them and melt down through to the roots and then under his skin and just live there, because that was where I belonged.

In the middle of all of this, I was offered a job singing at Club Mt. Auburn 47, a jazz club in the middle of the square whose owner wanted to convert it, on Tuesdays and Fridays, into a folk club to accommodate the changing times. I was to be paid ten dollars.

For my first performance I was accompanied by my mother and father, Mimi, and two friends. Another friend of the family showed up, and there were the proprietress and her partner. That made eight. Aside from that, there was no one. I was clammy and nauseated and my mouth was dry as dust. With my heart lodged down in my winter boots, I began the first set. !t was a ridiculous situation, friends and family all trying to look like an audience, trying not to peer hopefully over at the door every time they heard footsteps. In the middle of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair," Michael breezed in, his tan duffel coat flapping open and snow in his hair, and my throat swallowed all by itself right in the middle of a note, and I began to blush, a long and merciless blush from my toes to my scalp, and didn't look up from the floor until both the blush and the song were finished. A few stragglers wandered in for the second set. When I returned the following Tuesday, word had gotten around and we had a half-filled house. I took a job at another coffee shop, the Ballad Room, one night a week. A schoolmate from B.O. passed me on the street one day, and asked if I had picked up my report card. B.O. seemed a thousand years in the past but I drove across the river out of curiosity and asked for my grades. I didn't know there were so many ways to flunk: X's, F's, zeros and incompletes. That was the official end of my college career. I never gave a second thought to what I would "do with my life."

I would finish at Club 47 around midnight and run, sometimes barefoot in the snow, over to Adams House, where Michael officially lived with three other freshmen. Carrying a cup of coffee (through .the gates forbidden to "girls" in the daytime, not to mention the middle of the night), I'd burst into his apartment, past his flustered roommates, and find him slouched languorously on a floor cushion in his tiny room, reading Greek history, or Blake, or Camus in French. He'd accept the coffee, and we would nestle down together and talk about his dream of building a boat and sailing "away" to an island. It didn't matter which island, as long as the climate was warm.

We understood each other. What I did not understand was what I would do with myself on an island, and if I could be happy singing to parrots and monkeys, and perhaps an occasional non-English-speaking islander, and eating coconuts and bananas and lighting fires without matches. I was also terrified of boats, because sailing naturally meant you threw up in bad weather, so I was secretly hoping that Michael would find a way to remain true to himself and never have to leave the United States (which he said he hated). But I thought it was a noble idea that if you truly loved someone, you didn't need anything else in the world except that person. We would crawl into his tiny bed and have our dreams, both private and shared, and have each other, like two small woodland animals hidden in a dry stump, safe in the night from dangers both real and imagined.

Sometimes when he slept I'd sneak over to the window and watch the snowflakes go past in a ghostly cavalcade to cover the streets in silent blankets of white for the morning. I'd listen for the chiming of the Harvard bells in their tower and sit with a blanket wrapped around me, smiling like a bohemian Mona Lisa, at one with the snowflakes, with the tiny room, with Michael and myself.

And then, of course, there was morning, and stark realities edged in, jagged and imperfect against the new-fallen snow. My car wouldn't start. My parents thought I was at Margie's, and I worried they might have called. Adams House security had seen me racing up the stairs in the middle of the night, and Michael would no doubt have to see some awful disciplinary committee about rule-breaking, and if he was kicked out of school, we might be in serious jeopardy of having to realize his dream of sailing away, when in my heart all I wanted to do was stay in my beloved Harvard Square with him as a rebel student and me as a troubadour.

While I was generally subservient to Michael, I was a tyrant on stage. If some innocent student wandered into the coffee house thinking it was like all the others, namely a place to relax and read, he was mistaken. I'd stop in the middle of a song and tell him that if he wanted to study he could use the library. My growing collection of utterly pure, nearly sacrosanct folk songs was not something to be paid only partial attention to, and neither, apparently, was I.

As my repertoire expanded, my rigidity stayed the same. Each new song was as desperately serious as the last. One evening two young men got the giggles while I was singing, and I realized, to my embarrassment, that it was because the songs had been unrelenting in their plots of death, misery, and heartbreak: "Don't sing love songs/You'll wake my mother/She's sleeping here right by my side/ And in her right hand a silver dagger/She says that I can't be your bride." "Ail of my days I have seen trouble/And now I know it's common run/I'll hang my head and weep in sorrow/Just to think on what you done." "I leaned my back against all oak/Thinking it was a mighty tree/But first it bent and then it broke/So did my love prove false to me." "Oh mother, oh mother, go dig my grave/Make it both long and narrow/Sweet William died of love for me/And I will die of sorrow." I groped around in my mind for one single cheery song with a happy ending, and finished the set with "John Riley," because John Riley lives through a war to come back and claim his own true love after seven years, and she is actually alive to be claimed. But it sounded exactly like all the rest, and the giggling persisted. After that night, I made it a point to add some "humorous" numbers to the repertoire, my first concession to commerciality.

I began to frequent another club called The Golden Vanity. One night we had a double-bill show featuring Joan Baez in concert and a screening of Marlon Brando's The Wild One. My Harvard motorcycle friends had dreamed up the idea. Just as I was getting up to sing, there was a great roar out on the street, and the Hell's Angels pulled up. They were loud, tough, hairy, and obviously not coming to hear me. I was scared as hell, because I wanted to be a big hit and was sure the Angels would think me ridiculous in my madras curtain dress and bare feet, singing quaint unrequited love songs. But they decided I was okay, and even listened and clapped, and then I let them know, modestly, that I rode bikes, too, small ones, of course, but that I had learned on the largest Harley, which was true, and all in all the evening was a grand success.

Trouble nudged its way into Michael's and my dream existence by way of his jealousy of my popularity, his general incapacity to face the "real world," and soon after that, the awakening of new and more fierce demons in me, making my behavior more neurotic than it had been since my early teens. I was tom between my total infatuation with Michael and the fun of being a "well-known person." Michael halfway convinced me that if I pursued a career in music, I would inevitably become lost in the filthy world of show business, and so lost to him. I had a support system of boys who were going about their business and waiting for Michael to drop dead, and when he and I fought I would flirt wildly with all of them and sleep with none of them. And Margie would look wistfully at us as she gave me the key to her apartment and left for the evening to waitress. Her hair was sweet and fell like cornsilk to her waist, and she was crazy and tilted her head and smiled like a hexed cat. Margie was waiting for me to drop dead.

Michael and I shared one friend whom we both loved equally. He was one of those uncategorizable souls, rare and therefore treasured, a celestial junkie madman named Geno Foreman. He was eighteen, like us, but seemed to have lived several lifetimes. He was a hustler and a schemer and a dreamer, the original fuck-up, but such a stylish one that he was impossible not to admire. No school had been able to contain him. He had no normal sense of fear, and would drive a motorcycle the wrong direction down a one-way street in the snow. He was six feet tall and beautiful, with pale white skin; fierce, mad black eyes under an artistic sweep of eyebrows; and a mane of black hair. He played the guitar and piano, both with natural brilliance. Geno ate yogurt, wheat germ and vitamin C and was hooked on heroin. None of us ever understood why Geno was the way he was. His parents, Clark and Mairi, were the first couple I'd ever met who appeared to love one another deeply, run their lives in an intelligent way, and relate totally to the younger generation. They had two normal daughters and Geno. The first time Michael and I went to New York we stayed at the Foreman apartment on Ninety-seventh Street and Riverside Drive. We slept together in Geno's tiny cavern of a room, and when I emerged, guilt-stricken in the morning, Mairi put her arm around me and said, "Oh, darling, we don't consider you and Michael sharing Geno's room wrong! As long as you love each other, and Clark and I feel that you do!" And in the evenings when Clark came home from work, the two of them would lie side by side on the thin divan talking to us and watching the sun set over the Hudson River.

Geno died in England at age twenty-six. He was standing up waiting for the ambulance when his appendix burst. His last words were "Don't worry ..."

Peter, a friend of my family, offered to manage me and set up a recording date in the cellar of another friend's house. I went there with Bill Wood and Ted Alevizos to make an album. Bill was an engineering major at Harvard who hosted a folk show On the campus radio station. I harbored a wild crush on him, first because he was cute, second because the family thought he'd be a good date for my sister Pauline, and third because of how he played the guitar between the verses on "John Henry." Ted Alevizos sang Greek songs and had a gorgeous timbre to his voice, had had vocal training and was a conservative. Gossip had it that Ted had tried this new drug called LSD and gone completely out of his mind and had taken weeks to realize that he was back on planet earth. We sang some solos, some duets, and, for the finale, our own unique and special version of "When I'm Dead and Buried, Don't You Weep After Me." Peter designed the record cover in red and black with a big circle and a big square, and a shot of the three of us superimposed over them both. It was called Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square. I had bare feet, bangs, and at long last, tresses. Many years later a producer took it upon himself to repackage it with a new cover and call it The Best of Joan Baez. He also magically turned monaural into stereo, advertised it as by "America's Most Exciting Folk Singer," and released it just when my yearly-record was due. We had to go to court to stop its continuing production and distribution.

Under Peter's guidance and inspiration I decided, in spite of Michael, to give my first concert. It would be with Bill and Ted, and it would be held at Club 47. I don't remember what we charged; I do remember the crisis over the poster design when I 'couldn't make up my mind whether to change my name. The choices were Rachel Sandperl-Rachel sounded biblical and mysterious, and Sandperl was the last name of my political and spiritual mentor, Ira. Or it could be Mariah-after the song that the Kingston Trio had made popular, "They Call the Wind Mariah." At the last minute, I opted to keep my real name, as people might think I had changed it because it was Mexican.

It was a funny sensation seeing our poster around the Square. I liked it; Michael hated it. Somehow I was managing to hold on to both Michael and my mini-career, though not without the help of a psychiatrist because the contradictions were literally driving me crazy. Michael was my God, and I didn't question him because I didn't want to lose him. But when I was showered with compliments and praise, he became wretched, blaming me for the disintegration of our relationship. In between fights, we made love at Margie's, and I forgot all about singing until we went back out on the street and heard someone say, "Look, it's her!" and the cycle would repeat itself. I drank in compliments like a thirsty sapling after a drought to brace myself for the next siege of self-hatred brought on by the doubts of my own true love.

Spring came, and feeling guilty for having flunked out of school, I found a "real" job at the Boston Vespa Company, teaching people how to drive the scooter and then taking them to get their license. Summer came, and Michael went home to Trinidad to see his parents. I was still living at home and earned enough money to buy my father a brand-new four-speed Vespa and then quit. I went on singing, learning songs, riding motorcycles with the elite Harvard bikers, seeing Debbie and Margie and my psychiatrist, and pining over Michael and flirting with all the lovely boys who were still waiting for Michael to drop dead.

Big management approached me in the form of Albert Grossman, a sly, furtive, nervous, soft-spoken, funny, generous, and bizarre man with a round form, round face, round eyes, and round glasses. Above his round eyes arched black eyebrows, like smudges of charcoal, rose in an expression of surprise. He terrified me by saying things like, "You can have anything you want. You can have anybody you want. Who do you want? I'll get him for you." I wanted Marlon Brando, but wanted more for Albert to quit talking that way.

My father was impressed by the kind of money Albert was talking, but I didn't trust him. Neither did my mother. He wanted me to sing in his nightclub in Chicago, and offered me two hundred dollars a week, a lot of money. I said no. He told my mother I was very young and naturally frightened of leaving home for the first time. I said yes. He was right, of course: I was frightened of flying alone, of staying alone, of a club where people drank and might not listen, of everything, and that's why I went. The money sounded terrific, but I couldn't have cared less.

Albert's club was one of the finest in the country, The Gate of Hom, and featured Bob Gibson, at that time a very popular singer who played twelve-string guitar and banjo. I got a crush on Bob, of course, and was terrified of him because he was at home in a den of sin called a nightclub, was marvelously sarcastic and funny, drank too much, sang both serious and silly songs, and cracked jokes in between them: he actually "entertained" people. I lived in the Y.W.C.A.; it was July and I spent my days on the beach playing with black slum kids, my evenings at the club, and my nights writing frantic letters to Michael about how nothing could ever come between us, and reading letters from him about how he doubted me every minute of the day. I began to wonder why I was spending so much energy staying out of bed with attractive musicians. The time left over was spent sitting in the metal stairwell of the Y where the acoustics were positively liquid, practicing the songs I'd learned from Bob.

One night the Queen of Folk, Odetta, came to the club. I was a nervous wreck waiting to see her and was at the bar when I realized that she had arrived. I watched her for a minute from across the room. She was big as a mountain and black as night. Her skin looked like velvet. She wore massive earrings that dangled and swung and flashed, and her dress looked like a flowing embroidered tent. She had a split between her front teeth which showed all the time because her face, between expressions of worry, surprise, concern, and mock anger, would shift back into a smile big enough to match the rest of her. Her chin jutted out round and full of dimples when she laughed, and I thought she was the most dignified person I'd ever seen. To overcome the panic welling up in my chest, I went up to her and flat out did an imitation of her singing, "Another Man Done Gone." She looked surprised and then pleased, and then she enveloped me in her great velvet arms. I felt about six years old, and my heart didn't get back to normal for a week.

I spent two weeks at The Gate of Horn baffled, flattered and terrified by what appeared to be dazzling success just within reach. Within me the demons engaged in a riotous dance, coaxing me with the soft light, the maleness around me, the overt sexuality that erupted as inhibitions were anesthetized by alcohol. I knew only that at age eighteen, I was not cut out for the cocktail crowd. I needed my academic, rebellious coffee-drinking admirers who listened single-mindedly to their madonna, and dared not touch her.

Bob Gibson invited me to appear as his guest at the first Newport Folk Festival. I have only patches of memories of that historic occasion. It was August. I went to Newport with Odetta and her bass player. It rained every day. Bob Gibson had a very rich girlfriend named Penny, who was nice to me. I looked like the Original Bohe mian, wearing knit tops from Latin America or India, nondescript skirts or blue jeans, dangling earrings like my heroine, Odella, and sandals with thongs that laced up to just below the knee. There were tents full of folksingers, banjo pickers, fiddle players, and gospel groups, and streets full of hitchhikers. The kids who flocked to the festival were trim and had short hair: the sixties had not begun yet. Pete Seeger was there, my second living idol. (Martin Luther King, Jr., was the first.) There were black blues singers with broken-down guitars, and white kids trying to sound like them. There were big dinners where fiddle bands played long into the night. People put dishes of food into my lap and then asked me to sing. I was like a tiny star in the middle of an as yet unnamed firmament.

On the second night there were thirteen thousand people sitting out in the Rhode Island mist. After other performers (I don't remember who), Bob went on to delight the audience with his ballads and jokes while I stood in gladiator sandals down in the mud, stage left, gripping the handrail that led upstairs to the stage. I was wearing a bright orange knit and crocheted rebozo made in Mexico. It was lined in silk and was the fanciest bit of clothing I'd ever worn onstage. My other sweaty hand was clutching a guitar.

Finally, I heard Bob Gibson announce a guest and say a few words about me. I have no idea what they were, but I knew that in a minute I would be singing before what seemed to me to be the biggest crowd ever assembled in the history of the world. In that moment there was only the speeding of my heart; all movement was a silent film, and all sound was surface noise. There were nods of encouragement and thumbs up all around. It is my style when I am let out of the chute to walk swiftly and steadily, and I did so up the soggy stairs to my doom or glory. Bob was giving me a bright and cheery smile, and his cocky look which meant that life was only one big joke anyway, so not to worry. We sang, "Virgin Mary Had One Son." He played the twelve-string, and with eighteen strings and two voices we sounded pretty impressive. I had a solo part next, and my voice came out just fine. We made it to the end and there was tumultuous applause. So we sang our "other" song, an upbeat number (thanks to Bob) called "Jordan River." The two songs were religious, and I looked and sounded like purity itself in long tresses, no makeup, and Bible sandals. No wonder the press labeled me "the Madonna" and "the Virgin Mary" the next day.

An exorbitant amount of fuss was made over me when we descended from the stage. Into one tent and out of another. Newspapers, student press, foreign correspondents, and, of course, Time magazine. I gave Time a long-winded explanation of the pronunciation of my name which came out wrong, was printed wrong in Time magazine, and has been pronounced wrong ever since. It's not "Buy-ezz"; it's more like "Bize," but never mind. The French pronounce it "Bayz," which (phonetically speaking) is the present tense of the verb baiser, which in slang means "to fornicate."

Bob asked me if I'd like to make an easy hundred dollars the next day singing at a party for wealthy Newport types. He was to be paid five hundred, and if I helped him out, he'd give me one fifth. Making a hundred dollars in twenty minutes impressed me more than. anything else that year at Newport, aside from realizing in the back of my mind and the center of my heart that in the book of my destiny the first page had been turned, and that this book could no longer be exchanged for any other.

Back home in Harvard Square, I went to sing my usual Tuesday night stint at Club 47, and there was a line of people going right down the block and around two corners. Albert Grossman was back and wanted to talk about making records.

I had already been in touch with one half of Vanguard Records, twenty-nine-year-old Maynard Solomon, a music scholar who, with his brother Seymour, operated a first-rate classical music recording company. They were low-key and interested in making a quality recording of me.

Al Grossman wanted me to go to New York with him and meet John Hammond, president of Columbia Records. John was a well-known and gifted talent scout who had the power to push what he liked and push it well. In my mind, the difference between the two companies was that one was commercial and had mostly to do with money, and the other was not so commercial and had mostly to do with music. But I went to New York, convinced that I should do so in order to be "fair to myself."

I will never forget my first impression of Columbia. All I could see was gold. The walls were decorated with gold records and everything seemed to shine and glitter. And the air-conditioning was icy. I was led directly into John Hammond's office, no waiting. He was very nice, but the first thing he said was, "D'you want to meet Mitch?" I didn't know who Mitch was, but I said "Sure!," and he poked some buttons on a box on his desk and talked to his secretary, who quickly ushered in a man whose face was only vaguely familiar. He had a coiffured mustache and a goatee and I thought maybe he was Colonel Sanders. But I shook his hand and looked duly impressed. He was, of course, Mitch Miller, known in all the millions of living rooms in the country which had a television set. We still didn't have one, so all I knew about "Mitch" were some unkind jokes made by my music purist friends to whom his name was anathema, as he epitomized the kind of music and presentation against which we were, knowingly or otherwise, in rebellion. That episode over, a discussion commenced about recording contracts. At one point, a contract was slipped across John Hammond's big desk. They would have had me sign right then and there what I believe was an eight-year contract. I was developing a head cold, partly from the air-conditioning and partly from stress. I told Al that I wanted to go across town and talk to Maynard at Vanguard. Albert hated Maynard, and vice versa. My nose was stuffing up and I had chills. Grudgingly, he packed us into a cab to "go see Maynard, because I told him I would."

When we walked into Vanguard, the first thing I noticed was that there were no gold records on the wall. Maynard came out from behind his desk briskly and shook hands with us. Then he went back around and sat down again. He had pale blue intellectual eyes, one of which drifted off toward the periphery every so often and seemed to snap back on command. He wore tennis shoes and a brown sweater his wife had knit him, and he was going not grey, but white, and was so intense that he seemed a little goofy. I liked him. Perhaps it was my being a primitive classicist-I couldn't tell a sonata from a concerto from a suite, but I could hum ninety percent of the music played twenty-four hours a day on the classical music station. I knew that Maynard had made a career of recording the classics, and I was fascinated and felt at home. We talked.

After we left I told Albert, who wanted me to tie the knot with Columbia that afternoon, that I needed two days before making this very big decision. If I had not been tempted by the gloss and flattery and shining gold of the "major company," I would not have been so afraid. And as for Albert, he was right in his own way. Before the end of the sixties he would be managing Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix, to name just a few. If I wanted to go "big-time," Albert was the best and so was Columbia. Over the next forty-eight hours I had to figure out if the big time was something I could stomach.

The next night was a Friday, and I went to sing in Greenwich Village. Both Maynard and John Hammond came to see me. I talked with my parents on the phone and with my friends in New York. In the end, of course, I discussed it with myself and resolved to go with Vanguard. Albert faded out of my life for the time being except as a show business shadow who persisted, whenever he saw me, in reminding me that no matter how well I was doing, I could do a lot better if I teamed up with him.

The leaves turned, Michael came back from Trinidad, and I went to work as a housemother at Perkins Institute for the Blind, and continued at Club 47 Tuesdays and Fridays. My pay had been upped to twenty-five dollars a night. I met Manny Greenhill, a local Boston impresario who presented performers when they came to the area and also was personal manager to some famous blues acts. Manny worked out of a dingy old office overlooking Boston's South Station. He prided himself in his egalitarian behavior, and like a certain brand of good old Marxists who consider themselves working-class no matter how much money they make, always looked as if he had just stepped off a bread line, in his golf cap of nondescript color and wrinkled ancient raincoat. He was proud of his boxer's nose which had no septum and made him look like George C. Scott. He loved to tell stories about his old blues singers and the difficulties that arose because they couldn't read or write. Half of Manny's time was spent banging on doors of orphanages in the deep South hunting down birth certificates for blind guitar players so they could meet the rising demand for performances in Europe, for which they needed something called a passport.

Manny, too, wanted me to be heard by the largest number of people, but he also understood that I was a political being, and though I did not share his leftist ideology (which was the cause of many minor battles between us), he accepted my nonviolence and shared with me the understanding that speaking up for peace and justice involved risks which would inevitably interfere with commercial success.

We decided not to sign a formal written contract, but for a certain percentage Manny would work with me for a year. If at the end of the year the arrangement was mutually satisfactory, we would shake hands and continue it for another year. This agreement continued for eight years before we ever had a written contract.

To start, Manny got me jobs opening the second half of concerts with established artists. The first was in the Summer Series of 1959 at the University of Massachusetts, with John Jacob Niles, the well-known traditionalist and old crank, a singer- songwriter who sang in a high falsetto and played the dulcimer. As we had gone with my family in Manny's old rattletrap and as it had run out of gas, we were late to the performance and sat down in the back of the brightly lit auditorium. Someone else came in late and chose to sit up front. Mr. Niles stopped in the middle of a note, waited in deathly silence until they were seated, and then announced that "Attention follows motion, not sound." I was mortified and intimidated, but after intermission, when I sang my two songs, I was given an enthusiastic encore, which didn't do much to improve Mr. Niles's mood.

Manny also arranged for my first concert with Pete Seeger. I was late as always, and Pete was already finishing his first set when I got there. It was a tiny hall; too tiny, I thought, but Pete was wailing away on the banjo and everything looked to be in order. He came off the stage and greeted me. I went onstage and was utterly baffled: there were only a couple hundred students sitting around on the floor. I bowed and turned around to see if anyone was seated in the rear of the stage and discovered that I had been facing the wrong direction. Apparently Pete had sung his last song of the set to the overflow crowd seated up on the stage. I was thrown off balance, and as my heart began to slam in my poncho-covered chest, I launched into my first song. In the middle of the first sustained note I swallowed a large gulp of air and went on strumming while trying to gather a little spit with which to swallow and coat my bone-dry throat. As the note had been cut off, most ingloriously, I decided to say something-an event rare enough in my performances, but I had to see if I had a voice at all, or if it had vanished with the gulp of air. I said something like, "Oh! What a lot of people!" and then managed to collect myself and continue the song.

The first snows came. I was fired from Perkins Institute for going barefoot and looking like a bohemian. Soon after, I sang a concert with my Harvard Square blues buddy, Eric Von Schmidt, and went to a hootenanny in New York City.

By winter of 1959, neither Michael nor I could imagine our lives separate from each other. But I was sick with demons. Sometimes I needed to be held like a lost and trembling waif, and other times to flirt and conquer. I was the perfect example of the common high school expression "P.T." (prick teaser), and in refusing to consummate my seductions could tell myself that I had been and was still "good." The Madonna was in the Village; she didn't drink, take drugs, or make love, and yet somehow she was like a whore, and her demons were running wild. Many years later, Michael told me that that was why he fell in love with me. The "virgin" he worshiped and the "whore" he wanted to save.

Back in Boston, one day I sat in the psychiatrist's office, exhausted and crazy after a fight with Michael. The doctor asked what I thought would happen if I left Michael. I shut my eyes and saw the earth explode and a tiny figure tumble into blackness.

One night I found myself on a street comer in Greenwich Village, alone, with a suitcase and a guitar. Someone took me in; I have never remembered who. I walked down MacDougal Street and hung out in cafes. I didn't eat or sleep. I met people who smoked marijuana and talked about drugs.

For a few nights I followed my giddy beckoning demons, staying up until dawn, feeling sick, taking Miltown (which preceded Librium, which preceded Valium). I was sickest at the first morning light, tasting the metallic tang of guilt sliding to the back of my throat, running down my spine and emptying into my stomach.

It was safer back in Harvard Square. I had grown close to Mimi, who played duets with me, and I had "all my lovely Harvard boys." They were in love with Mimi and me, and we were in love with them collectively. We were both like Guy de Maupassant's whimsical character Mouche, only Mouche slept with all her lovely boys, and they loved her none the less for the sharing. Our boys seemed satisfied to love us as they would two Mexican virgins who would eventually be given in marriage to the boy proven to be the truest and purest. Dear Goodie, Stein, Todd. Dear Piper, Cooke, Billy B. Dear Geno.

Once I was driving through the Square to Adams House and I saw Michael out in front of a bookstore, leaning forward to kiss a beautiful woman on the lips. Her hair was pulled back into a sophisticated bun, and she looked like a grown-up. I parked down the street in a nauseated daze and waited long enough to see Michael flash into the dorm late for our meeting. He yawned and put his book down when I walked in, and I watched him lie for the first time.

School let out and the summer of 1960 arrived. Michael went home again to Trinidad, and I went to New York to make my first Vanguard album.

We worked in the Manhattan Towers Hotel on a dingy block of Broadway. The ballroom was available every day of the week except Wednesday, when it was transformed into a bingo parlor for the local residents and their guests. I stood on the dirtiest rug in New York City in my bare feet, dwarfed by the huge, musty room, and sang into three microphones, two on the outside for stereo, and one in the center for monaural. Freddy Hellerman of the Weavers used a fourth microphone for six songs after I had decided, under great pressure, that a second instrument, tastefully played, was not "commercial," but rather enhanced the music. The beautiful ballad "Mary Hamilton" was secured in one take, without a run-through. I would work for a few hours, and then Maynard and the engineer and I would go down the street for roast beef sandwiches. In three days we recorded nineteen songs, thirteen of which made up my first legitimate solo album.

My parents were moving back out west; I was staying east. We had a mother-father-Joanie-and-Manny meeting at the house. I was tight-lipped and distracted as Manny asked questions which I let my parents answer. The only thing I kept bringing up was that I didn't want to sing in nightclubs, but wanted to give regular concerts. Manny said he was willing to work on it, provided there was a big enough audience for me. The meeting was terribly tense. I was paralyzed by the fact that my parents were leaving, and I would actually be on my own. I suddenly felt so tiny, not at all like a star of any size or import. For the first time in my life my mother would not be waiting by the fire with a cup of tea for me and some violin or cello or piano on the phonograph. But I couldn't think about it. I just clammed up and stared out the window and let everybody else discuss my future. I thawed a little when Tia arrived with a glass of wine in her hand and cheer in her heart and a wonderful understanding of the child she had always referred to as her "little songbird." Somehow she made me feel that I could take the next step in my life and not die from it. It was decided that Manny would try to set up concerts for me, I would continue my two nights at Club 47 and weekends at the Ballad Room, and I would not do nightclubs.

My parents left. Margie disappeared. Debbie was in love. McDoo, a good high school friend, moved east to live with me. We found a fourth-floor apartment, no elevator, with one bedroom, a living room, kitchen, and bath, a few blocks from Harvard Square. What we had in common was that we were both professor's daughters. What we didn't was that she was blond, very pretty, exactly as I had known her when we had graduated together and had made a vow, along with Muff Calloway, that we would all remain virgins until we were married.

I was fascinated by McDoo's magnificent breasts. Even when she lay on her back daydreaming, they pointed skyward, with or without a bra. She curled her hair at night in huge plastic rollers, was hygienically squeaky-clean, pink-and-white complected, sweet-tempered, and wanted to be a beatnik. So she bought black panty hose and stopped wearing lipstick. For a while, we had a wonderful time, fixing up the apartment, making a lot of salads, and feeling independent.

Michael and I hung out in the living room, drawing, talking, making love, and fighting. McDoo would poke her head out of the bedroom door, curlers abounding and towel wrapped around her gorgeous body, say" 'Scuse me" in a high-pitched voice, and fly across the hall to the bathroom with a little wave.

One night Michael and I had been to the movies. The last scene had left Joanne Woodward standing on a street corner yelling at her husband, who was driving away with his lovely young mistress. On the way home I had a nausea attack, and by the time we reached the fourth floor, I collapsed on my bed. Michael was telling me that I was like Joanne Woodward, and I had thought I was like the lovely young mistress. I asked Michael to change the subject or, better yet, just tell me I wouldn't throw up. Michael went into the kitchen and made an avocado and banana sandwich and sauntered back into the bedroom chewing noisily.

Suddenly, very suddenly, the nausea vanished and I found myself flexing my toes around the upright lamp we'd bought at the flea market, and in dreamlike slow motion, lifting it with my leg and hurling it across the room. It landed directly on Michael's head. His mouth froze open over the avocado and banana sandwich and the whole scene vanished into darkness.

I got up feeling like Godzilla and headed toward the living room. The first thing to catch my eye was the wine bottle with a candle in it and a year's supply of wax dripping down in multicolored lumps. I grabbed it by the neck and threw it against the wall with all my might and was rewarded by the sound and sight of shattering glass and wax chips in flight. But I was already on my way to the kitchen. First the coffee pot went, but it was metal and suffered only a small dent while spewing the cup or two of stale coffee and grounds into splotches against the wall. I headed for the plates in the cupboard. Michael stepped up behind me, saying, "You stupid ... Are you crazy, or what?" and grabbed my arms at the elbows. Empowered with the strength of rage, I turned myself around, and in a quiet and determined frenzy, grabbed his hair and pulled, kicking furiously at his ankles. He hopped up and down to get out of the way of my feet, squeezing my wrists to unlock the grip I had on his curly locks, and cursing and hissing in shock and anger. I finally gave up and collapsed in tears.

Michael left, smoothing back his hair but clearly shaken. I sat on the floor in pools of damp coffee grounds and sobbed my heart out. McDoo came home and helped me up and listened to the whole story. By the time the story was over, I was resolved never to see Michael again. McDoo helped me pack all his things into boxes, put them out in the hall and double-bolt the door. I pinned a note to one box saying something original like "I never want to see you again." Drained and exhausted, I went to bed. Awakened by the first morning rustlings, I heard McDoo tiptoe past me into the bathroom. There was a brick lodged between my eyes in back of my nose. Then I heard a scream and by the time I could prop myself up, she was in the doorway next to my bed with her beautiful blue eyes wide above the night's mascara blotches.

"Michael's trying to climb in the bathroom window!" He had picked the screen off, opened the window, and hoisted himself over the tub with the still-steaming one inch of water and three inches of bubbles that was supposed to have been McDoo's bath.

Wherever you are, McDoo, I apologize. And you needn't have cried when you told me that you just weren't cut out to be a beatnik and were going home. I hope your wild ride in Harvard Square afforded you some laughter in memories.

Michael and I groped for a way to make a fresh start. He was stifling in New England. Even I felt it might be time to move on. We began talking about moving to California.

Go to Next Page....

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,R. Ryan
Date: 29 Aug 11 - 01:15 PM

I was wanting to get access to any records on Geno Foreman, but they require some proof of death (either an obituary or death certificate). Does anyone know where I might find such records? I haven't been able to find anything online.

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 30 Aug 11 - 06:21 PM

Hi Richard, I have emailed you about your questions, Peace, Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 01 Feb 12 - 05:25 PM

See this page for Geno Foreman:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 19 Feb 12 - 09:05 AM

I am uploading new photos of Geno on his page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts

Peace and love,

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 21 Feb 12 - 08:15 AM

In 1961 Geno bought his 1951 Citroen 15-six and drove all over Europe.
He loved that car; it gave him a new freedom and he lived in it for many months. When he returned to NYC in the fall of 1963 he reluctantly left the car on the street in Rome. In July 1965 (almost two years later) we pulled up to that same car still parked on the street and just then some boys had opened the door and were beginning to go through Geno's possessions inside. I jumped out of our home, the 1951 Citroen Type H step van (eight months pregnant) and chased them away. Everything was still there. Geno was delighted.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 25 Feb 12 - 10:21 AM

Suze Rotolo wrote about Geno Foreman in her book "A Freewheelin' Time"·

Suze Rotolo died on Feb. 24, 2011. She wrote beautifully about Geno in her book.

... 1. A Freewheelin' Time: a Memoir of Greenwich Village in the sixties - Page 270

Suze Rotolo - 2008 - 371 pages - Preview

Geno Foreman came from a distinguished family. Though he was the son of Clark Foreman, the director of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, the group that had given Bob the Tom Paine Award, Geno didn't seem to be from any family. It was as if he just flowed loose in the world with an extraterrestrial energy. He was about six feet tall, with very dark, thick hair and a full beard, and he was missing some front teeth. His dark fiery eyes darted about as fast as his words when he spoke.

........

I don't remember when I saw Geno again-later that day or weeks afterward- but he had no sense of gaffe or an offense because Geno wouldn't intentionally hurt a fly. Geno. Man. Geno was beautiful, brilliant and irrepressible. He was the mad prince in the kingdom of the mad ones. He married and fathered a child and died in a freak accident in England a few years later.

"Codicil"

..."Sadness so overwhelming it takes the breath away. Numbness affects the ability to move the body, and brain fog hampers vision. The slightest thing can bring on a bout of crying. Constricted throat, burning insides, dull aches. Nothing matters but what went wrong or what can go wrong now that something is beginning to feel wrong. There is a wicked, hideous, backbiting enemy in cahoots with instinct to beat the daylights out of white-hot sentiment. No contest. Everything is obliterated."

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 12 Apr 12 - 01:40 PM

New photos on Geno Foreman's page!!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Steve wilson
Date: 15 Apr 12 - 12:42 AM

I was a friend.of Dylan and Paul Clayton and geno a d (Albert) came to visit my place in Charlottesville, va. I may have a old reel tape of him playing and drumming on guitar. We did a lot of dope and listened to the the bahama singers at van ronk and cornfields place on wavily. [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Stephen Wilson
Date: 15 Apr 12 - 10:45 AM

Apologize for unintentional, incoherent voice/iphone message preceeding:   Met Geno a variety of times in New York and elsewhere. In those days he was most often found with Albert Mayher (sic) and it was under the attractive influence of Paul Clayton that they came to Charlottesville Va, probably in 1962-63, staying at my house for about a week. Somewhere I do believe I still have a reel-to-reel of Geno playing accoustic guitar, possibly "Twelve Gates to the City" and bongo-ing on the guitar. (Not sure cuz I no longer have r-t-r to investigate.) He was much under the stylistic influence of Gary Davis at that instant. More records, smoke, comedy at 190? Waverly Place, Van Ronk and Barry Kornfeld's address. I expect BK has recollections and possibly tape. My last sighting of GF was as I sailed off to Europe in the middle of winter with no money, warm clothes, or friends, but a bountiful amount of weed which G had acquired for me. Went months around Spain, to Granada & Ibiza and the gypsy caves, but trip almost finished me off. Scurvy. A year or two later, heard GF had expired in London. Very sad. Charming and I believe Che Guevara channeled Geno stylistically.   [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 15 Apr 12 - 10:55 AM

Hi Stephen,
Thanks for the wonderful memories! I will email you.
Peace and love, Marcia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epoMnWLeE68

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 20 Apr 12 - 05:21 PM

See Geno's Page for information about the movie "For The Love of the Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival"


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts

...................................................................

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts#!/Club47Film

Just released in Cambridge, MA.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 20 Apr 12 - 05:28 PM

More on the film:

http://www.wbur.org/2012/04/17/club-47-film


http://www.loveofthemusic.com/

Wish I could see it!!

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 12 May 12 - 09:37 AM

Get ready to celebrate Geno's birthday May 29!

See new photos on his page!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman-Hugh-Quin-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 25 May 12 - 07:43 PM

"ODE TO ERIC" for Eric Dolphy   a poem by Geno Foreman


ODE TO ERIC


The innocent abroad, the unattached wanderer, lost in finding himself alone in his musing and skyrocket sonic creations of love.

How Everest-like the humblest of his conceptions would seem if comprehended searchingly by the lost and lonely homeland student of art and the lives of greats.

How timely the meditative and analytical care
that was taken in the dialectical fantasies and far-reaching intellectual ponderings of his beloved scales.

Where/when ever his pathfinding panegyrics oded
overwhelmingly brave in their fathomable fearlessness in the face of barely tolerable gumchewing drunks.

For the listeners who could hear him, he told of the trials of yesteryear in the total-tomorrow language
of a lonely bird bound outward in the still night.

The solemn sorrowful sufferingly sound belief
of those hearers whence came his sane strong sound
of great and powerful love for them and their sleeping song.

Hugh Quin Foreman, 1965
For Eric Dolphy

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 07:54 AM

My BOB DYLAN collection is for sale!

Bob Dylan Collection

Photos of Bob Dylan:
Café Wha? playing harmonica 1961 - my photo
Gerde's playing harmonica 1961 - my photo
My wedding to Mark Spoelstra 1962 with Suze Rotolo
My wedding to Spoelstra 1962 alone

Signatures:
Guest list from wedding to Spoelstra 1962
- " Me Bob Dylan"
- "me too, Suze Rotolo"
- "Jack Elliott"
- "Patty Keith"
- "Eve McKenzie"
- "Warren McKenzie"
- "Howard Schoenfeld"
- "Ann Lye"
- "Len Lye" and more..
Copy of Check to Geno Foreman from Ashes and Sand
   for $1,000. Dated 2/21/66 "Original retainer fee for research of POP material in Europe".

"Bob Dylan 1966 Tour Itinerary" 3 pages- Hotel Accommodations- List of personnel

Three 12" Vinyl "Audiodiscs" from "Another Side of Bob Dylan"
about 10 tracks.

Vinyl Albums:
"The Times They Are A-Changn'" "For Demonstration Use Only Not For Sale"
"The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"
"Another Side of Bob Dylan"
"John Wesley Harding"
"Infidels" 2 copies one in sealed plastic
"Street Legal"
"Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits"
"Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. 2"

If you are interested or know someone who might be email me:
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 08:07 AM

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman-Hugh-Quin-Foreman/42626487985?ref=ts&fref=ts
Tomorrow, Nov 15th is the anniversary of Geno's death in 1966. He died around midnight in the tiny windowless furnished room (bed-sitter) we had rented near the old West London Hospital in Hammersmith. Four days earlier I had taken him to the Hospital when he experienced a serious abdominal pain. He was examined and sent home. During the next four days I saw five different doctors, trying to get s
ome help for him as it was clear his health was declining. We did not have a telephone or car. One hour before he died a doctor did come to see him and said that he needed to get to the hospital quickly. Ha said he was going to go outside to his car and radio for an ambulance. I asked him to wait with us until it came. He refused. The ambulance never came. His last words to me were,"Don't worry, it's nothing". It turned out he had ulcerative colitis which had perforated, causing peritonitis. He had be hospitalized twice before, in Rome in Dec., 1965 and in Paris Aug 1966. He was never diagnosed correctly. He was 25 1/2 years old.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 09:47 AM

Check out Geno's page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman-Hugh-Quin-Foreman/42626487985

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 10:39 AM

Geno and Hamza el Din singing in Nubian and playing Ouds together. Hamza taught Geno to play the Oud and sing in Nubian. They speak in Italian and English on this tape. Recorded in Sandy Bull's mother's home on 61st St in New York City in 1963. Geno and Hamza met in Rome in 1962. Geno had a tape made of Hamza and took it back to NYC and Maynard Soloman at Vanguard Recordings resulting in a contract for Hamza.

https://soundcloud.com/hamza-el-din-1/hamza-geno-did-noura-remember

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 31 Jul 13 - 09:48 PM

I have received many new photos taken by the great Joe Alper at the Indian Neck Folk Festival in 1960.... some are with Eric von Schmidt and others with Rev. Gary Davis. Also 12 photos again by Joe Alper taken at the Caffe Lena in the fall of 1963 after Geno returned from Europe. Some of them can be seen at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Geno-Foreman-Hugh-Quin-Foreman/42626487985

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 09:49 AM

Nov 15th is the anniversary of Geno's death in 1966. He died around midnight in the tiny windowless furnished room (bed-sitter) we had rented near the old West London Hospital in Hammersmith, London. Four days earlier, on Nov. 11th, I had taken him to the Hospital because he was experiencing serious abdominal pains. He was examined and sent home. During the next four days I saw five different doctors, trying to get some help for him as it was clear his health was declining. We did not have a telephone or car and of course I had our 16 month old baby girl to take care of as well. I even went back to the emergency room at the hospital to ask for help and was given a bottle of Peppermint Liquid for him. One doctor I saw told me that "big hospitals don't make mistakes". One hour before he died a doctor did come to see him and said that he needed to get to the hospital quickly. He said he was going to go outside to his car and radio for an ambulance. I asked him to wait with us until it came. He refused. The ambulance never came. His last words to me were,"Don't worry, it's nothing". It turned out he had ulcerative colitis which had perforated, causing peritonitis. He had been hospitalized twice before, in Rome in Dec 1965 and in Paris Aug 1966. He was never diagnosed correctly. He was 25 1/2 years old. At the Inquest the Intern who misdiagnosed him cried when he realized that his mistake had resulted in Geno's widow and baby girl would have to live the rest of their lives without him. Of course the story is much more complicated than I have related here. I have been working on a book about Geno's life. Peace, Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 28 Oct 14 - 12:42 PM

Geno Foreman... how he died by Marcia Stehr
October 28, 2014 at 11:28am
Geno's death Nov 15, 1966
November 15, 2012 at 6:58am

Nov 15th is the anniversary of Geno's death in 1966. He died around midnight in the tiny windowless furnished room (bed-sitter) we had rented near the old West London Hospital in Hammersmith, London. Four days earlier, on Nov. 11th, I had taken him to the Hospital because he was experiencing serious abdominal pains. He was examined and sent home. During the next four days I saw five different doctors, trying to get some help for him as it was clear his health was declining. We did not have a telephone or car and of course I had our 16 month old baby girl to take care of as well. I even went back to the emergency room at the hospital to ask for help and was given a bottle of Peppermint Liquid for him. One doctor I saw told me that "big hospitals don't make mistakes". One hour before he died a doctor did come to see him and said that he needed to get to the hospital quickly. He said he was going to go outside to his car and radio for an ambulance. I asked him to wait with us until it came. He refused. The ambulance never came. His last words to me were,"Don't worry, it's nothing". It turned out he had ulcerative colitis which had perforated, causing peritonitis. He had been hospitalized twice before, in Rome in Dec 1965 and in Paris Aug 1966. He was never diagnosed correctly. He was 25 1/2 years old. At the Inquest the Intern who misdiagnosed him cried when he realized that his mistake had resulted in Geno's widow and baby girl would have to live the rest of their lives without him. Of course the story is much more complicated than I have related here. I have been working on a book about Geno's life. Peace, Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: Marcia Stehr
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 08:11 AM

Remembering Geno Foreman May 29, 1941- Nov 15, 1966 with love always from Marcia

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Bob Freedman
Date: 28 Nov 14 - 10:59 PM

Marcia,
I apologize for being late but want to remember Gino with love and respect

Bob Freedman

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 15 - 10:55 PM

Yes... I knew Gino from the Albert & Gino days. I probably still have tape he made at my house Charlottesville, va in early 60's... Visiting Paul Clayton Steve [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 17 - 07:43 PM

I knew Geno twice. Once at St John's College in Annapolis, circa 1958-59, and again in Munich in 1960. I don't mean I met him casually; we were buddies. I want to tell an account of these times, but I can't do it now. I'll be back ASAP.
Tony Miller
San Pedro, CA

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,1959-1967
Date: 07 Jan 19 - 02:09 PM

Met Geno midway thru freshman year at Harvard 1959. An irresistibly exciting guy. I was a dedicated blues picker at the time and it was a thrill to watch Geno pick and sing. As preppie from an Ivy League family, my folk blues performing was short on authenticity. Geno looked and sounded as if he had broken rocks on the chain gang with Ledbellie,

Besides blues guitar, I was passionate about riding motorcycles. So was Geno. A flamboyant, daring guy on a bike, Geno was a challenge ride with because you didn’t know what me might do. People were drawn to Geno and he was almost always fun to be around. He loved to make a party out of almost anything, and did.

It’s truly sad that Geno’s inner demons kept him out of a recording studio and denied the world a record of what she sounded like. My best memories might be of him playing and singing in Albert and Kelsey’s room in Matthews, upstairs at The Golden Vanity. I never heard anyone sound like Geno before or since. Tapes I’ve heard only play back a fraction of his rich sound. Many, many great times with Geno!

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Peter Rowan
Date: 03 May 20 - 02:19 PM

Gino kidnapped me on his motorcycle Drove all over Boston. Ended up in a loft past Huntington Ave. Played guitar. I learned Keep on Truckin Mama.   He blew my mind. He was the “ Ur” sensibility of those days. Mt Auburn St Club 47. Magic!

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: cnd
Date: 03 May 20 - 04:32 PM

Wow, is this "the" Peter Rowan? That would be incredible!

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST,Mike
Date: 25 Jul 20 - 11:20 AM

I didnt know him - but a friend of mine did. Davy (Graham) used to mention him as a visitor in 1962/3 to the flat he was sharing. You probably know he called a blues instrumental from his 1963 LP Guitar Man "Blues for Geno"
Incidentally, the song you were referring to earlier is the Champion Jack Dupree number "Junckers Blues" from 1940.
Incidentally, this blog is a great read - a lasting tribute to someone who was truly living in interesting times !

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Nov 20 - 02:36 PM

We were good friends of Mairi and Clark Foreman in Puerto Rico. We loved them so much. What we always heard of Gino is that he died of a ruptured appendix. I think it was in England - not sure. He went to the hospital, was turned away, and then died of the appendix. We would love to be in touch with Joan Baez to talk about our wonderful memories of Mairi and Clark and their family - especially Shelaigh and her children who stayed with us for a while. The son became an audiologist which I am.

Subject: RE: Did you know Gino (Geno) Foreman
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Nov 20 - 02:40 PM

I understood from his parents, Mairi and Clark, that it was a burst appendix. I saw where his ashes were buried on their wonderful finca in Puerto Rico. We purchased land next to theirs so we could be close to them.